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The Faint and Les Savy Fav V and i saw The Faint on Sunday night at the Roxy. We missed openers Schneider and most of Les Savy Fav because we were [conveniently] having dinner then. I actually like most of what i've heard from Les Savy Fav, particularly the music. My problem with them is that it's like Jello Biafra fronting Fugazi ... two great tastes that most definitely do not taste great together. Anyhoo, on to the Faint. Electroclash is not really my cup o' tea but i'm moderately into these guys. They came out and immediately launched into "Glass Danse", playing in front of two giant video screens. The crowd was the most enthusiastic i've ever seen in Boston, despite the show not having sold out. As usual, i'm going to play the party pooper: i felt the band were confined by the backing tape and the synchronized video. The show lacked the energy of their last performance at the Middle East, perhaps because everything was rigidly dictated by the prearranged movies. To give you an idea of how little improvisation was possible, one song was accompanied by doctored news footage in which the news anchor's lips mouthed the words to the song (think Conan O'Brien's interviews with Bill Clinton). Moreover, the Faint played for a scant 30 minutes before leaving the stage, returning for another 10 minutes of encore for a grand total of 40 minutes of music. The band has three albums plus a remix album, it's not like they ran out of material. Well, maybe they ran out of movies. I came away with two amusing quotes. The first was overheard while exiting the venue, coming from a group of scenesters praising the show and the videos: "I liked the one with the water". The second was between-song banter from the lead singer: "This next one's a remix of a song from our album Blank Wave Arcade". When you play a song live, isn't calling it a remix a little redundant? I guess not, when the majority of the instrumentalists on stage are doing precious little besides dancing.
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