my hearts aflame, my body's strained but god i like it

TV on the Radio was maybe the second best show I've seen this semester. The audience wasn't as engaged as they could have been but there was still a lot of dancing.

I sort of feel like I missed the boat on including them in my top 15 for last year. It wasn't that Return to Cookie Mountain wasn't awesome. I was just tired of hearing it everywhere. I kind of hate how MTV/VH1, etc. do that to good songs and good bands. The best part of the show, though, was how humble TVOTR was when they played Wolf Like Me. I kind of expected it to be a much bigger deal because that song probably singlehandedly popularlized Cookie Mountain, but the band was really good about not acting like their most popular song was their best song. Some of the slower songs were really amazing live, but I was definitely excited about getting to dance to some of the newer ones. My favorite thing about TVOTR is their explosion of genres and melding of time periods--I can easily imagine them doing just as well three or four decades ago as they are now. Watching them felt like watching a piece of history--maybe something I'll tell my kids about some day the same way older folks tell me about seeing Marley or the Beatles. There was something otherworldly about it. I know I always emphasize the power in music that feels very raw to me, but this wasn't that at all. It was entirely different, not because I felt disconnected but because the music wasn't about the band's glory. It was just music. It sounded great and they played and performed it as if they were real people, not the total rockstars they are.

As an aside--does anyone else like Ugly Casanova? I can't stop listening to them lately.