Múm

August 22, 2003

Múm concert, Logan Square Auditorium. We arrived to somewhat of a line.

Interior shot, early on. Not as many people crowded by the stage. Overall, the whole crowd was evenly (and almost politley) separated. We all crouched on the floor (that’s Jim there, on the left in front of the speaker) and talked for a good hour. I had some great converastions with him, and I’m happy to have had more time to spend with him this weekend. Last time he was in town (I still need to get images from Justin’s party updated) he and Sally’s visit was all too brief. Great talks tonight.

The opening act (I forgot their name, and that’s a good thing) wasn’t my cup of tea at all. I had an incredibly difficult time getting into them, and it just sounded like two guys making continuous, loosely organized noise for about 20 minutes. I use the word "loosely" as a kindness.

At one point, I think I remarked to Jim: "I was just bored at first. Now I’m getting pissed off."

Alex had a great line: "I’m actively looking forward to not clapping."

But Justin won with: "I’m so happy they found one another. I’m not so happy they found me."

There were a few interesting moments/transitions during the opening act’s performance. But the moves felt arbitrary and lucky. Sloppy even. I had a difficult time telling what was predetermined and what was impromptu. If I knew it to be one or the other, I might have thought differently. But the fact that I couldnt’ tell which one it was (orchestrated or improvised) seems to me a bad thing.

The whole time, I couldn’t help but think of the David Sedaris essay on crystal meth and performance art.

This is a random, stick yer arm up, turn on the flash and shoot shots.

Jim and I estimated it must have taken a good two hours to set up all the electronics on stage. I think this is during their performance of "We Have A Map Of The Piano."

Around now is when Justin confesses to me his desire to travel to Iceland. :)

Múm making accordions look cool.

Sad to say, but towards the end of the concert, I was literally falling asleep on my feet. A bit tired perhaps, a bit slowed by whiskey and the music. Like a jackhole, I totally fell into the guy in front of me and had to apologize.

Like I said – literally falling asleep on my feet.

Overall, I think I was fairly disappointed by the concert. Don’t get me wrong – they were great musicians; they were tight and had their shit together. But for some reason I wasn’t feeling it. Perhaps I didn’t know enough of their work overall, as I only recognized maybe two or three songs from the whole set.

We all left early, soon after I took the above pic. On our way out though, they started to play Green Grass of Tunnel, which I had to stick around for. I was obsessing over that song for a while a month back, and was delighted to hear it live.

And I’m SO happy I stuck around for that song. Because I got into a fun conversation afterwards. :)

This would be the pretty girl who I talked to, on my way out. She was directing me to take a few pictures, and I asked to take one of her. We fell to talking briefly, and I ended up digging through my notebook looking for a piece of blank paper (time for a new notebook it seems), and scrawled my blog address down for her.