No Concert For Tomorrow
I suppose I should elaborate on Coheed and Cambria a bit, as Saturday I’ll be heading over the border with Elizabeth, Dave and Patricia to see them in concert. Get it, their latest album is No World For Tomorrow, and there’s no concert for tomorrow because it’s actually Saturday, and… ah, forget it.
I think that, if anything, I’m more ambivalent than I was before. They make some pretty good music, but it’s pretty good music that’s self important to the point of silliness (something I know a little about: this is my fourth blog post today, after all). I was able to read the first issue of The Amory Wars, and I thought both the writing and the art was fairly horrible. ‘Coheed was feeling upset.’ Well, really? How about you show that and let us figure it out for ourselves? The writing reinforced my feeling that Claudio Sanchez never got past the ‘man I have this idea for a story and it is so deep’ phase we all go through in high school (to anyone I ever forced to read Platinum, I’m sorry).
It also doesn’t help that the song Feathers seems to be about all women being dirty lying whores. That’s not exactly a message I can get behind.
Though it seems sort of cliche, I wonder how much pressure they’re under to make more radio-friendly songs. They have songs like Wake Up and Feathers, but then end their albums with four or five track series that are much more orchestral. Whether intentional or not, they’re increasingly adding in more generic crap that I’ll be forced to two-star in iTunes.
And yet I paid $40 to be able to see them perform live (I’d like to be able to make a joke about that being like five American dollars, but sadly the denizens of America’s Hat are chortling to themselves in between bites of poutine). It’s because, hard as I am on them, the thought of hearing In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 and Welcome Home is exciting. I enjoy listening to their studio stuff, and they seem to be the type of band whose awesomeness increases tenfold live.
As much as I know it’s not a good thing, I’m a very reactionary person. A whole lot of stupid kids like Coheed and Cambria, which makes me disinclined to give them a chance. It’s the same way with Tool: they’re talented as all get out, but people think that Maynard is a god and he’s too busy thinking of himself as an arteest.
And how does that work? You’re a bicycle.