changing music one bleep at a time: Empire of The Sun Live in Los Angeles

As the chartered busses from the So-Cal beach towns turned onto Hollywood Boulevard and unloaded it's passengers at theMusic Box Theater on August 11th, one thing became clear: this would be no ordinary concert. Fans adorned themselves in feathers, face paint and headdresses that would make West Hollywood's gay pride look like a small town craft fair. No this was not a concert in the truest sense of the word. This night was about the spectacle. Appropriately situated in the land of smoke and mirrors, naturally all 4 nights were sold out shows. This was the medieval times of pre-recorded track concerts. I'm talking dance beats you eat right off the bone, chalices filled with overcompensation, and full-time dancers that definitely have to rehearse their moves 40 hours a week. They danced with new lady-gagaesque constumes in nearly every song.

If I were sipping the pre-show kool-aid I might have really gotten into my visit to the scientology planetarium. If EOTS were billed as a cirque type show I would have expected and enjoyed it for what it claimed to be. However this "pop/electroacoustic/alternative" band left me wondering what their interpretation is of a live concert. The over developed and frenzied wall of sound and the Stephen Speilberg-esque sound effects were nothing but a distraction from how watered down the music became. The high points were "Standing on the Shore" and "Walking on a Dream" which definitely kept the crowd moving. For a brief moment, I thought the show might make a turn for the better but then Luke Steel (of The Sleepy Jackson) situated himself in a wheel chair, threw a massive pocket watch a la flavor flave around his neck and wheeled his way across stage while singing. I thought I could cite David Bowie as a possible influence, but after that fiasco I might liken EOTS more to a cross between a modern day Milli Vanilli for music and Prince for visuals.

The glaring contradiction to all of this is that the album is well-crafted and their 80's image is supported nicely in the material. I may be getting greedy here, but with a live show I'm not just paying for the lights, costumes and dancers. I want all of that yes, but I want to see my musicians play music. I want to hear their voices (we can only blame the sound guy so much for this). Finally let's not overlook the obvious: if you can play your live show without 50 percent of your contributing band mates (Nick Littlemore of Pnau was nowhere to be found) clearly music is not the first priority. I don't doubt the talent of the contributing musicians. In theory this would be an amazing show, but in practice it felt like a bad acid trip.