M83 in Northampton

Last night Gabi, Neil and I went to Northampton to see M83 perform at Pearl Street. Not only is Saturdays = Youth probably my favorite record of the year, its definitely my favorite record cover of the year. Please see above. I love this record because its all about being a sexy teen, getting depressed, making out for the first time, melodrama, doing cool stuff that cool kids do, ignoring your parents, thoughts of suicide, running away in the middle of the night, wearing rad clothes and above all, listening to really beautiful synth-pop music on the weekends. More or less, its an album-long tribute to the work of Molly Ringwald and John Hughes, as evidenced by the video for Graveyard Girl:



They sound a little bit like the Cure, the Thompson Twins or other '80s goth bands, I guess. However, I really love M83 because they remind me of buying the first Anniversary record, Designing a Nervous Breakdown, which was the best CD of my teens, hands down. If you want to see the best that the internet has to offer, go watch the music video for their first single All Things Ordinary on YouTube.

Anyway, last night was even better than I had expected. I thought of M83 purely as an electro-synth dance operation with a lot of droning repitition, but they actually did rock out like bands should. The drummer sounds like a drum-machine, but he's really playing. Singer Anthony Gonzalez is quite charming on stage. The other singer, Morgan Kibby was intense. Her voice has intense clarity that sounds kind of ethereal on the record, but more powerful and less subtle live. She absolutely killed it on Skin of the Night, my favorite track.

having drinks at Tunnel Bar across the street during the opener, because I absolutely despise opening bands

on the right is elusive Kevin, Linda's boyfriend

Neil

M83

getting depressed!

we own the sky

graveyard girl

skin of the night

couleurs