Best available seating is being held and will be made available for purchase to current June 11^th ticket holders starting tomorrow (May 14) at 3pm EST though 3pm EST on Thursday (May 16). The password for ticket access is:  MONTCLAIR.

If you purchased a ticket online, your order will be automatically refunded by Tickets.com. If you purchased a ticket by phone or at the Wellmont Theatre box office, refunds are available at the point of purchase. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience and hope to see you all on June 12^th.

Get your ticket for the 6/12 show here!

]]> http://lovethisgiant.com/love-this-giant-north-america-europe-summer-2013-tour/feed/ 0 http://lovethisgiant.com/love-this-giant-to-play-bonnaroo/ http://lovethisgiant.com/love-this-giant-to-play-bonnaroo/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:57:47 +0000 Love This Giant http://lovethisgiant.com/?p=2202 David Byrne & St. Vincent have been announced to play Bonnaroo in June. The full-line up, plus updated ticketing information and schedules, can be found at the Bonnaroo 2013 website.

David Byrne & St. Vincent performing “I Should Watch TV” on the “Late Show with David Letterman”

David Byrne and St. Vincent, fresh off an Australian tour for Love This Giant, made an appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman” last night. They performed “I Should Watch TV”. (In a newsletter, Byrne wrote, “The meaning and significance of doing that song on TV is making my head go funny.”)

http://pitchfork.com/news/49343-watch-david-byrne-and-st-vincent-on-letterman/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PitchforkLatestNews+(Pitchfork%3A+Latest+News)

David Byrne performing “I Should Watch TV” on Letterman

Yep, David Byrne and St. Vincent are still a thing; that is, they continue supporting last year’s collaborative album, Love this Giant. Last night, the two New Yorkers cabbed it over to The Late Show with David Letterman, where they performed arguably the strongest cut off the album, “I Should Watch TV”.

The always quirky Byrne anticipated the performance earlier Monday morning in a newsletter to his fans, in which he wrote: “The meaning and significance of doing that song on TV is making my head go funny. We haven’t done it yet, obviously. I hope we’re good.” Catch the replay below and see if Byrne’s wishes came true. (Spoiler: They did.)

Love this Giant is currently available here.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/01/video-david-byrne-and-st-vincent-on-letterman/

First of all, the opera house is NOT the building that is usually pictured in the postcard views of Sydney—that is the symphony hall. The opera house is the smaller, almost identical building that is often hidden behind it. In the photo below, the opera house is on the left.

Source

The production was set in some indeterminate Orwellian dystopia. As the pit orchestra played the overture, a pretty spectacular film of body parts with texts and mirrored masks was projected on a scrim. This flew up to reveal the giant set which consisted of industrial columns that could move up and down (where is the fly-space in this building?). When this part of the set was down it resembled a concrete freeway underpass—a weird urban dead zone out of a J. G. Ballard novel. A false ceiling of fluorescent panels flew in; it looked like office lighting. Like the columns, the fluorescent ceiling could also be raised and lowered—sometimes with “watcher” characters on board, looking over railings above the lights.

All the actors wore business suits that were visibly numbered, as well as weird headpiece/appliances that covered their ears and made them all look like bald clones. I liked it.

This being a Verdi opera there were plenty of catchy tunes. (Maybe the piece had been compressed a little? The running time was only 2 ½ hours.) The hits came about every 10 minutes. I left singing a particularly ironic one in my head, which is what is supposed to happen. (This particular tune was ironic because the tune itself is jaunty, but it’s sung by some conspirators who are up to no good—it’s a foreshadowing of bad things to come.)

Of course I’m watching all this thinking, “Budget!”. It’s no accident that “experimental” or “downtown” composers and theater directors angle to get gigs in the opera world—where else could one have the budget to indulge in a vision like this!

What does the dystopian vibe have to do with Verdi’s opera and its narrative? Not a whole lot, though the opera is certainly set in a royal court full of intrigues and political (and sexual) rivalries—not much has changed. And one could argue that the “masks” could be viewed, metaphorically, as the face one puts on to one’s peers and to meet the public.

Does Verdi need updating? Probably not, though the spectacular staging was part of what one was paying to see. Did it give the piece a new contemporary resonance and meaning? I dunno about that either. One ultimately wishes for new works with the tunefulness of Verdi, or equivalent musical impact, that fit a staging as revolutionary as this one.