Sleigh Bells @ Mad Planet (10.26.10)

I'm too lazy to write an actual concert review these days, but here's an adapted e-mail that sums it up pretty well:

I really enjoyed the Sleigh Bells album, but what an odd show. Mad Planet is an interesting venue. I had tickets to the Harlem show there a few months back, but ended up not making it. So this was my first show at the place. Now I know why everyone jokes about the Riverwest area being the hipster center of Milwaukee. I've never seen so many pretentious hipsters congregated in one venue in this city before (I must be hanging out at the wrong (right?) places). On top of that, there was a strong police presence at the place when I arrived (because nothing says "out of control crowd!" like a former-buzz-band-turning-mainstream act). Regardless, the bouncers took it as a chance to kick out a girl who looked like she drew whiskers on her face. Edgy!

Anyway, I couldn't really see the band because the stage wasn't really elevated at all. While that made for a decent dance atmosphere, I couldn't see anything from my spot in the back. Turns out I didn't miss much. It was all backing tracks and vocals, with occasional live singing from the girl. I have no idea what the guy was doing up there - probably just making sure the correct track on their album was playing. They sped through (note: if this was a positive review, I'd say "blistered through") their set in about 30 minutes. I was going to leave after 20 minutes, but then I remembered the album was short and there were probably only three songs left. In at least half the songs, the girl kept shouting "Scream with me, Milwaukee! Let me hear you guys scream!!!!" Thing is, the crowd was (inexplicably) pretty into them. (In fact, the guy next to me kept giving me weird looks for, I assume, looking unimpressed.) But that was the entirety of her stage banter. At the end of the show/set/encore?, she says something like "and let's keep it going for the house DJ!" But there was no house DJ, so it was just silence. So that made everyone think they were about to play another song. So after a minute she goes, "Uh, is there a DJ?" Then they started playing the house music, and everyone dispersed.

Sleigh Bells!

Album: Buzz-worthy
Live: Buzz-kill