If you have used the Internet today (you have if you're here), you've probably heard that Microsoft finally released its new MP3 player, the Zune. And, let me have the honor of being the 8000th person to tell you this: the Zune is totally going to bomb.
Unlike most of the 7999 people before me, though, I'm not basing this on any firsthand experience with the player. I went to the official NYC launch party last night, and there was not a Zune in sight. The closest I've come to it is watching a couple of dorks play with it on the waiting line for tickets to the party while a film crew captured their awkward dorky lameness.
Even the whole laundry list of complaints about the thing have no real bearing on my assertion that it's going to bomb. Microsoft, you don't take on Apple and the iPod. Monopolies are illegal 'n stuff, but... no. The MP3 player market is theirs, and you're not going to be a blip on their radar with your weak shit. The target demographic for MP3 players is twenty-something hipsters who, surprise surprise, are by and large very much in love with the other Apple products they use and have a well-documented disinclination toward all things M-$oft. Marketing 101, you guys.
... this ends the "Technically Unqualified Tech Review By Some Dude" portion of this post.
But yeah, regardless of the fact that no one is going to remember that the Zune existed by next week, I've gotta say that Microsoft DOES throw a badass launch party. It didn't matter that the product they were launching was nowhere in sight - no one was actually there for that. We were there to stand about five feet away from Queens of the Stone Age as they rocked our faces off for free.
This was actually the first time I'd ever seen them live, but some guy I overheard said that this was "the nicest QOTSA concert [he's] ever been to." I can believe it - most concerts don't offer the audience an unlimited supply of drinks, pigs-in-a-blanket, and mini-burgers. But it probably also had something to do with the venue; the concert/party took place at the new Lower East Side locale, The Box, which seriously can't be more than 100 feet long from stage to entrance. The place was tiny, which allows for some nice, brain-melting rock.
Now, as some background, I don't like to throw the phrase "brain-melting rock" around too lightly... but from the post-show praise-laden conversation I had with my old friend Tom who also attended (he'd seen them twice before last night, once at MSG) to about two lines ago in this review, I've used the phrase at least a half-dozen times.
If you've never seen QOTSA live or have ever thought that their albums were good but not amazing - go see them live as soon as you can. I've literally never been as big a fan before as I am today.
Josh Homme 'n friends took the stage at just a couple of minutes past 10pm, officially making them the most punctual band I've ever seen (a plus!). They also earned bonus points by playing songs not just from their last LP, Lullabies to Paralyze, but favorites from all across their albums. Josh and Troy van Leeuwen blew me away with their artistry on such Lullabies favorites as "Little Sister" and "In My Head" (a song Josh dedicated to bassist Alain Johannes for his birthday that night), and they even made me like "Burn the Witch," a blues-metal hybrid that I frequently skipped on the LP.
But QOTSA kicked the most ass on their live renditions of Songs for the Deaf and R classics, like "No One Knows," "The Lost Art of Keeping A Secret," and my personal favorite of theirs, "Go With the Flow" - an urgent, searing blast of fast guitar and bass lines laid over a drum part that basically feels like it's kicking you in the chest.
On that note - Joey Castillo is an AMAZING drummer. Dude looked like he actually came from the Stone Age and intensified every song beyond its LP counterpart by pummeling the shit out of his kit nonstop.
Another high point of the night was when QOTSA took it back as oldschool as possible - to the first song off of their debut album, "Regular John," a damn epic that had the crowd cheering four times before it was over. And, right before 11, they closed with "A Song for the Dead," another song that only finally won me over when I heard it live.
So there you go. QOTSA: The World's Most Punctual and Kickass Stoner-Rock Band.
They don't have a tour coming up anytime soon, but you really need to check them out as soon as they come to your city again. I know I will.
...What? Zune? Oh yeah, I forgot about that already.
2 Comments:
This is a pretty accurate write up of the show. Just wanted to mention that they closed with "Songs for the Dead," not "Hanging Tree" - easy to confuse as both are sung by Mark Lanegan.
good catch, thanks - i just changed that in the review.
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