Wordless Music - The Spiritual Transcendent - Manuel Gottsching & The Joshua Light Show
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Artist:
Summertime is a great time for free concerts in New York City. When the weather cooperates it can be absolutely perfect - like the Nicole Atkins show at Socrates Park on June 17 and The Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks headlinging show at the Coney Island Siren Fest on July 19th. Then it can be almost perfect, like the Sonic Youth show in Battery Park on the 4th of July (it rained some but not much, considering).
Then there is the next level down on the "satisfaction" scale - the Ting Tings/MGMT show at McCarren Pool on July 27. It poured buckets at the beginning of this show - everyone got drenched - but then it ultimately stopped and MGMT pulled out the day successfully.
Then there is the best-laid-plains-but-utlimately-complete-disasters such as the Blonde Redhead scheduled appearance at Pier 54 in NYC on August 14. Even though it had been a beautiful sunny week, the clouds began looming late on this Thursday afternoon. Still, I had my fingers crossed that Mother Nature was going to hold off this time. However, after two hours of waiting outside the pier in a steady growing rainfall - and despite the shows organizers having fought hard to try to get the show on - in the end, all of the equipment drenched, the stage in about a foot of water and the lightning illuminating the sky, the show was unfortunately called off for safety reasons by the NYC Parks Department.
Bummer.
So, it was with some trepidation that on the following night - Friday, the 15th of August - new concert going BFF Nancy and I headed over to Lincoln Center and its Damrosch Park Bandshell for one of their Out of Doors free concert happenings.
No sooner did we get there that it started raining again. Uh, oh . . .
Respected composer Rhys Chatham was to premiere his A Crimson Grail for 200 Electric Guitars (Outdoor Version) performed not on the Bandshell stage but along the sides of the audience at Damrosch Park, to heighten the work's polyphonic effect.
However, once again, the rain made this impossible. All of the amps surrounding the three sides were drenched, despite attempts to cover them. It was too much of an electrical risk and unfortunately, this performance had to be canceled.
Rhys apologized to the audience and promised to bring this show back some time in the future.
However, the night was not a total loss as they were able to present to us the second scheduled co-headlining appearance of composer/guitarist Manuel Gottsching's electronic composition E2-E4. This piece is today generally acknowledged as the influential starting point for early techno and house music.
I captured some of this hour-long performance in more time-managable video clips:
E2-E4 builds from calm and quiet to multiple layers of texture and repetition, culminating in an ecstatic groove.
Collaborating with Gottsching for this first-ever U.S. live performance of E2-E4 was visual artist Joshua White and his Joshua Light Show, who created live visual projections designed specifically for this piece, projected on the suface of the Damrosch Bandshell.
The projection uses "liquid light" techniques developed at Bill Graham's Fillmore East during the late 1960s.
This performance and experience was nothing short of amazing.
So, in spite of the element and disappointment of part of this show being rained out, in the end it was yet-another enlightening New York concert experience.
Comments (17)
Hey Dave..
Brilliant review in spite of the rain! That'll teach the rain to try to mess things up! Love the video too.. the sound is excellent. What did you use to film.
K
Thanks, Kori.
I used the "all the latest rage" Flip Video. I kid you not. The thing is so easy to use and it takes really good videos.
I just bought one!!! LMAO! I filmed my trip to Nashville with it. Its SO cool!
Yeah, and - here's a tip - if you want to upload high-quality clips to YouTube - don't do it directly from the device. Copy the files over to your computer first - then upload them to the 'tube. A little trick I learned after a while.
This seems like a smoke some weed, lie in the grass, and soak it all in kind of show....if I got it right, you captured the evening perfectly lol! Reminds me of a laid back Moby kinda thing...I'd dig it :-)
Well, fire one up, GR - and let the ever-changing percussive rhythms (over the purposefully limited chord progression) and improvisational guitar-work take you away.
;-)
you guys are funny. great post man, but some of the word choices that have come up are questionable:
"enlightening" and "soak it all in" are two phrases that i might have avoided in this situation.
kidding aside, although the weather in Santa Monica's usually pretty awesome, i had an amazing rainy July 4th in NY last year. it was great to be able to walk from the upper east side to the 59th street bridge on a hot, rainy night and the show went on. i miss those moments and it sounds like yours ended on a happy note. the phrase "liquid light" was unavoidable!
Reading your post it amazes me how many great experiences you can choose among in NYC. I love that city.
We get lots of rain.............that's about it.
Thanks for documenting these rainy days.
Ha, ha RD - you're right. "soaking" may not have been the best choice of words ;-)
"Amazing" 4th of July's in NYC are great.
Me and the Horse - come on over to NYC when you can. Or maybe I'll come visit you in Denmark!
;-)
very rad. I love how the lincoln center's bandshell is hidden behind the buildings and music seeems to just play out of them. the light show looked spectacular
rain rain go away.
Yeah, the Lincon Center experience at Damrosh Park Bandshell is panoramic. You see all these great office buldings lit up behind it. There are some in direct view of the bandshell and I can only image the view from an apartment up there is very cool.
As for the rain - ugh! Don't even ask me about The Ting Tings . . .
It LOOKS like a Monster Magnet show... but sounds nothin like.
Hey, I remember them, Doomsy.
They had that "hit" song Space Lord
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iPi2aauu0
Ha! Thanks for bringing that one back to my mind.
lucky you, getting out to so many cool summer shows! (at least i can live vicariously through you :))
Thanks, bf
But - you do all kinds of cool things. Look at you there - walking on the beach listening to your voice mails ;-)
oh yes the coolest huhaha
I'm not actually a big Monster Magnet fan, I did see them live (with White Zombie) right before they "went big". In fact, a friend of mine got cracked upside the skull with an empty whiskey bottle that someone threw from the front of the crowd to the back and it connected squarely with the side of his head. I did post on them once right here http://mog.com/Doomsayer2001/blog/154467. This song blows away anything else they have done in my opinion.