Thirteen Tales of Pretentious Self-Indulgence

So i went to see the kings of cock-rock last night, The Dandy Warhols, play at the Metro (i'm still refusing to call it the Palace in petty protest), and sadly the only thing more disappointing than the bartender pouring my corona into a plastic cup, was The Dandy's themselves.

I'm usually one that's all for over-exaggeration after a gig, i get lost in the moment, the adrenaline, the groupies, the drugs, the whatever and i end up walking out of the venue screaming the band's praises to anyone that will listen about how that's the best gig I've seen in years blah blah blah...

But last night i was pretty bored. And don't get me wrong, I love the psych-trippin', one of the most amazing gigs this year was the Dandy's older brother band, The Brian Jonestown Massacre - but last night i saw first hand what many had told me before, that Courtney Taylor-Taylor has got nothin' on Anton Newcombe.

Last night The Dandy Warhols seemed to be a band that after so many years of enjoying the hedonistic excesses of the limelight, were ashamed of their commercial success, playing as if they wanted to sit in the cult indie throne their older brothers held. And what i mean by that is that they played for themselves, not the crowd who had paid (an overpriced) $90 to come see them. Their performance seemed like a bad rehearsal in their home garage in Portland, Oregon, which would be fine if you were a genius cult band that had never reached the mainstream or sold millions of cds. But the Dandy Warhols have, and no matter how hard they try to reclaim an underground following, they can't, they are a mainstream pop band on a major label, and have been for years. Trying to be anything else just makes them look like assholes.

The most depressing part of the night was that their set list was fantastic, with well placed crowd favourites amongst songs from their new album ...Earth To The Dandy Warhols... but it was almost as if they weren't the ones who wrote the damn list, they rushed through all of their hits, mumbling or distorting the words or even lazier, getting the crowd to sing the entire song for them (Get Off). Conversely their extended psychedelic wanderings were given all of the effort, time and showmanship you would expect from a band that has been at the forefront of mainstream alternative music since their debut ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down. Their outright disdain for their pop songs ruined the show, as the crowd would scream and cheer as they heard the start of one of their many anthems only to have a weird look on their face 3 and a half minutes later because the song was played out of tune or in double time.

Now i have to ask myself, If i was in a rock band and I hated my hits, why would i put them on the set list? Actually, why would i be touring in the first place? Bohemian Like You, Get Off, We Used To Be Friends, Minnesoter, Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth and All The Money Or The Simple Life Honey were all failures, complete and utter failures, with crucial instruments even missing on some tracks, including the synth on We Used To Be Friends and the famous drum-intro on Bohemian Like You. Only the trippier hits, Godless and The Last High were exceptions to this and were played brilliantly.

But anyone who knows me would guess that this only pissed me off further, because it was obvious that it was not as if Courtney & Co. had done some bad pills before the show or had a bad voice on the night. The fact he nailed those two hits along with the rest of his border-line indulgent psychedelic tracks only showed the potential for how good the other, more loved songs could have been.

Some bands piss me off for loading their set lists with obscure nonsense that show you that they don't care about what the crowd wants to hear, and the trick as a musician is always about finding that balance between crowd-pleasers and concert songs, but for the Dandy's to know what we want to hear and deliberately not give a fuck because they're sick of the songs of whatever...that's fucking disgusting.

After last night, I'm over The Dandy Warhols, and while i may not send name-engraved bullets to their hotel room like Anton, I think I'll save my money next time they decide to grace our shores with their genius.

...Earth To The Dandy Warhols...you're not nearly as cool as you used to be.

D