They played mostly older material: it was very much a "greatest hits" performance. It felt very much like the first time I saw them, back in (I think?) 1989 at The Warfield, which at the time was the best show I had ever seen in my life. This time I was not so impressed, which makes me sad, because it's not that their show has changed, it's that I'm no longer a hyperactive little kid. I enjoyed that first show on the basis of the intensity of the crowd, and didn't much care that the show almost entirely consisted of a pair of MCs jumping around. Both that time and this time, they had a live drummer, and there was some playing of keyboards going on, but it wasn't really a "live show" situation. And these days, I care about that a lot more than I used to.

Another difference is that I've been seeing every fucking "industrial" band in the world rip off Front 242's act for 15+ years now, and none of them are nearly as good. Yeah Grendel, I'm talking to you. You too, E-Craft. You too, Funker Vogt. As a result, that act has lost a lot of its oomph.

So, I enjoyed the show, but I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I didn't enjoy it more, and the only conclusion I could come to is, "I've gotten old."

(Also I shouldn't have tried to take pictures, I should have just watched the damned show instead.)

I enjoyed the Male or Female show back in 2003 a lot more. (Male or Female are Daniel and Patrick of Front 242.) I suspect that, had this 242 show not been so "greatest hits" oriented, it would have been a lot more like the Male or Female show, since 242's latest releases ("Pulse" and "Still + Raw") are more in that vein: mellower and more emotional.

Do yourself a favor and pick up (at least) "Still + Raw". It came out almost two years ago, and it's incredibly good and nobody has heard of it. And amazingly, they weren't selling any CDs at the merch table! Only t-shirts and their new live DVD. Weird.

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There were these three meatheads in the audience who were really making friends. If you've ever been at a show with a mosh pit, you know the type: you'll have a hundred average-sized people bouncing around and having a good time, and then there are these three 6' tall 300 pound football-player-looking skinhead jackasses who came there with apparently no goal other than to demonstrate that, yes, they really are bigger than everyone else. Watch them ram their way in front of short people. Watch them grab girls by the throat. I had one of them thrown out halfway through the first song, and the other two got themselves thrown out eventually, but not before they'd managed to piss off pretty much the whole front third of the room. Thanks, guys. Everyone really appreciated it.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: at one point they stopped the show because apparently someone threw a bottle. The band left the stage and the tour manager came out and played mom for a little while. Now, the funny thing about this is, there was a time when the band wore armor and hockey-goalie masks. I guess they miss those masks sometimes, huh?

In other news, the In Slaughter Natives show has been cancelled, because the bands weren't allowed in to the United States from Canada. The story I've heard is that, though they were told by their manager in no uncertain terms to tell the customs folks that they were just on vacation, they 'fessed up to being musicians on tour. This made the fact that they had not bothered to obtain work permits... somewhat problematic.

In the last month, we have had no less than three drives die, some the day we brought them home. We came frighteningly close to losing three years worth of data. This confirms my opinion that RAID is pretty much worthless: the software will never tell you when one of the drives has failed (even though it's supposed to) and it will never be easy to replace one of the drives (even though it's supposed to). The only reliable way to do backups is to rsync to a different machine, preferably one in a different building.

Oh, and also, Soundweb died. Soundweb is the computer/appliance that runs out sound system, so for the first half of that night, the only sound in the club was what was coming out of the dj's monitors.

Sunspots! Or one of our customers is testing out their HERF gun on us.

Photos are now up of Cabaret Verdalet (a great show as always) and of Android Lust + Equilibrium. I really liked Android Lust a lot! I was also pleasantly surprised that they were a real band, not just laptops.

Check out the "Stained" video on their web site, it's very cool.

Upcoming events worth attending: