My first concert in Philly and the first concert Mira and I have been to together! The night started off with an unexpected ordeal: I had bought a ticket a few weeks ago, but Mira had been expecting to get a ticket at the door or buy one off someone who had extras. But when we got to the venue, the show was sold out! And then when we came back looking for people with extra tickets we were greeted by scalpers who were asking for $60 a ticket (originally $33.55 including service charges from Ticketmaster). So we held out for awhile hoping that people with extra tickets would show up and ask for a more reasonable price, and also contemplating whether I should just sell my ticket for a profit instead. Eventually someone came along asking for $35 so we jumped on it and ended up making it into the concert after all! The lesson: don't count on tickets being available on the day of show!
Anyway, once inside, the famed Electric Factory did live up to my expectations. It's a classic standing-room only venue, with the second floor balcony and bar area over-21-only. We got seats there after the first opener and had a really good view of the stage without having to deal with the crazy dancers on the main floor. There were some very bizarre scenes flashing on some screens on the wall in between sets though...
The two openers, the Noisettes and the Kills, were both very strange British bands...it wasn't so much their music as the actual band members and their performances. The Noisettes consisted of two guys with crazy hair and a girl wearing a gladiator helmet dancing around barefoot on the stage, and the Kills were a guy and girl both wearing very tight jeans with no drummer. Both groups kind of had a lot of theatrics during their performances which were amusing to watch, though, and I thought a lot of the music was actually pretty good.
Then Bloc Party came on. And they were awesome! The band members seemed like they were really nice down-to-earth guys and they looked like they were having a lot of fun. I think they played most if not all of their album Silent Alarm along with a couple of new ones. Their music has a lot of energy and great guitar riffs and they just seem interested in making good rock music for the fans, not making a statement or doing anything too new or experimental. And in live performance the energy level only increases. They did two encores and the lead singer threw in the opening to the Fresh Prince theme song in one of the songs (as a tribute to the Philly crowd?) which was really funny. I'm really glad that we made it into the show after all. Yay Bloc Party!
Mira: Seriously, my input is long overdue, but I just wanted to say, yay for finally getting to a concert with Jenn! I think that Jenn summed up pretty much all the important points concerning the concert. I didn't know any of these bands before I went, and I probably will not get to know the openers any much more either. But Bloc Party was seriously awesome. And the concert as a whole was really great. The Electric Factory is a perfect small-sized, but not-soooo-small venue to go watch concerts. Yay, for Bloc Party -- and I am officially obsessed with "This Modern Love."
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