Attitude amplification

Compared with last time I saw them, everything good about Silversun Pickups is even better now, and everything irritating is even worse. Last night's show at the Independent revealed a band ready for takeoff, with a massive ego up front that's quickly spinning out of control.

What's not to like about the flailing, wrong-handed drummer? About the deep science of the electronics whiz seated at stage right? The shyly grinning, expressive bassist? The squalling guitar figures, reminiscent of so many great bands when they get fully sonic? The pieces are all in place, and yet it's apparent that the frontman is developing one of the worst attitudes in rock music.

As the night wore on, the between-song banter became more and more self-congratulatory. "I think we booked too small of a venue," singer Brian Aubert told a sold-out crowd full of people who either bought tickets in the first ten minutes they were on sale, or paid through the nose to get them afterward. "What do you think? I was starting to feel bad for the people waiting outside when we got here." Later, he delivered this gem: "San Francisco is very important to us, because Live105 was the first radio station to add 'Lazy Eye'." Are you serious, amigo? If you're going to call me your market, you'd better deliver some serious songs. And, I'm afraid, the band did not.

I'd like to say that the band's more rhythmically complicated numbers benefited from their ambition, but the truth is that those songs seem more like filler. The band's hooky little grooves, like the otherwise poorly-written "Little Lover's So Polite", are really their bread and butter. I haven't really spent much time with their records, and I've only seen the band play twice, but it's increasingly apparent that the lyrics don't give a person much to hold on to. People sang along with the parts they could remember. "It's everything that is connected and beautiful, and now I know just where I stand," goes one. "I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, but it's not quite right," goes another, and so forth. The disconnected ideas really don't add up to much in the end, and the noisy crescendos and intricate textures start to seem like so much hot air.

Hmmm. Lots of buzz, long on style, precious little substance... um, what city did you say they were from?

Aubert thanked "the beautiful people" about a dozen times, and appeared to spend a lot of time soaking up their applause. It's hard not to be cynical about a rock star's motives when his narcissism is so apparent. (Ever see a film of Sting when the Police were megastars? Same attitude.) By the end of the night, I felt like I should've sold those tickets on eBay, and gotten myself something I could really use.

[BAD VENUE ALERT: The Independent's fine, generally, but when you ask the bartender for water and he automatically gives you a little bottle of Calistoga and charges you $2.50, he doesn't deserve your business. He should have asked if I wanted tap water. It came out of his tip.]

[UPDATE: Check out someone's terrific pictures here.]


FMFM: Living With The Living, Ted Leo's latest record of timely, commentary-focused songs. Apart from the irritating "Bomb.Repeat.Bomb.", which should have been a non-LP single, the record highlights Leo's best traits while cleaning up some of his more abrasive ones. I'm not quite sure about the full-blown reggae song, but I love the tin whistle on "A Bottle of Buckie" and the straight-ahead simplicity of "La Costa Brava". As always, he means every word. Why would I ever bother with Silversun's nonsense when I could be listening to this?