Air
Mayan Theatre, Los Angeles
Wednesday, July 11, 2001

I've never seen Air before so when tickets went on sale for forty bucks (thirty plus ten for ticketmaster), I didn't really hesistate. I'm subscribed to the Astralwerks newsletter and there are little reports about how great the tour is going and how everyone is in love with Air right now. Well, that was all a bunch of hype, I wish I would've never read that because my expectations were high enough.

The thing that I forgot is Air is Air. Their music doesn't scream out 'amazing live experience', but a lot of bands make really cool mellow music and they can even take it on the road. To make up for the lack of action on the stage they brought a pretty damn good light show. They enhanced the music instead of distracting from it.

I'll give it to them that they did play a nice mixture of new vs. old stuff. The "Virgin Suicides" soundtrack was pretty amazing and I'm glad they played "Playground Love", even if Jason Falkner was on vocals. I didn't really care for thier faster version of "Sexy Boy" which closed the show. Maybe if they would've played "Kelly Watch the Stars" I would've been happier. When you only have two "official" albums there's no reason to NOT play your big hits. Even Radiohead played "Creep" during the Bends tour. :)

I enjoyed the show for the most part, it was just that it's too damn expensive. So if you can get in for free (or twenty bucks!) then go, otherwise just spend the money on the Air records, those are still amazing.