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My Bloody Valentine at the Concourse Exhibition Center 9/30/2008
Download Festival 2008 at Shoreline Amphitheater 7/19/2008
Yazoo at the Paramount Theater 7/7/2008
Los Campesinos! at Bimbo's 365 Club 6/6/2008
Flight Of The Conchords at the Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium 5/27/2008
Kanye West at the HP Pavilion 4/18/2008
Justice at the Concourse Exhibition Center 3/27/2008
The Kills at the Rickshaw Stop 2/14/2008
Editors at the Warfield 2/8/2008
Morrissey at the Fillmore 9/23/2007
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Yazoo
Paramount Theater, Oakland, CA
July 7, 2008

I've been bad about posting lately, with the usual excuse that by the time i find a spare moment to write something i no longer have anything to say. Usually going to a show provides me with an immediate impetus to write a review, but somehow the recent Yazoo reunion tour has remained uncommented on for the last few weeks. And for better or worse, that is absolutely a comment on the memorability of the performance. Veronica, Gary, and i convened in downtown SF and drove over to Oakland for the show at the Paramount. We had just enough time to squeeze in a quick sandwich at next door's Cafe Madrid before hustling back for the 8pm show. Luckily we found our seats in the balcony with a full 15 minutes to spare before Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet hit the stage. The pair, who apparently never toured during the brief lifetime of the band in the early 80's, took their places on the sides of the stage, each in front of a big video screen and Clarke with his requisite keyboard. Vince looked as skinny and hairless as ever, while Alf ... how to put this delicately ... well, she was never a small girl, and she looked like she was wearing a mumu. The set kicked off with "Nobody's Diary", one of many synth pop anthems the pair churned out over their two year partnership. While the video screens faded in and out of classic photos of the duo, Vince filled his usual Chris Lowe-esque motionless role behind the keyboard while Alf belted out the lyrics. If this description sounds a bit lackluster, it is fully intended. The show failed to transcend its limitations, despite two hugely talented players and two albums full of worthy tracks. The whole thing lacked a vitality, a reason that people should go nuts for the reunion of a group that closed up shop 25 years ago. The crowd, chock full of former new wave kids from those heady days, certainly lapped things up, but Gary and i maintained that the experience wasn't significantly better than listening to Upstairs at Eric's. The unimpressive use of the video screens were part of the problem. Ever since Daft Punk toured with their brilliant video pyramid, the bar has been raised for multimedia electronica shows. And unfortunately, simple rotating geometric patterns and scrolling text no longer cut the mustard. 3D renderings of Vince and Alf's heads were more worthwhile, as was the swinging lightbulb during "In My Room", but on the whole the videos fell flat, leaving only the pair's minimal gyrations to provide a much needed visual element to the performance. What's weird is that this is something both Depeche Mode as well as Clarke's regular group Erasure have excelled at in recent years. There were highs in the 80 minute set, to be sure ... "Bad Connection" and "Goodbye Seventies" were rousing numbers, while old standards "Don't Go" and "Situation" elicited the appropriate level of enthusiasm from the audience. But however much your adolescence revolved around "Only You" or some other Clarke/Moyet torch song, it's difficult to argue that this show exemplified their contribution to modern rock.

 

 

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