Massive Attack - 'mezzanine'

Venue was great, crowd was as well as could be expected in a near-stage general admission area, and the show was requisitely intense. The humorous bits of the visual play were a little less tongue-in-cheek and more blunt, and the harsh bits pretty harsh, but it gelled.

The ending with two displays on either side reminded me of an optometrist doing the “look to the center, can you see the figures to the top and bottom? And now?” Only it wasn’t letters or hands, but war and surveillance

Band and Liz were top notch!

why must the nyc show be on a thursday

oh shit, that's tonight? oh well.

I saw them on what most have been their previous tour and, like Kraftwerk live (and then some), it was much more impressive than I might have imagined. I want to say when I saw them the guest vocalists (like Fraser) appeared and disappeared as needed.

Wait, Liz is touring??? Oh brother, I'll be in the corner crying.

― Johnny Grottan from the Skeks Pistols (Leee)

Saw them do this in London and definitely had moist eyes during Teardrop, appropriately.

so gutted to have missed this during their European tour

Also saw this last Saturday. Group Four was all time live with Liz. Holy shit guys

This was as good as something of this sort could be, imo. They sounded great, and despite the facile Banksyness of the visual/textual content it had a lot of poignant moments, like when Liz sang "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" against a backdrop of war footage - I choked up. The Bauhaus cover was fabulous and exhilarating.

Wait Liz is singing Risingson?

Nope.

Yeah just checked the setlist, she does a Pete Seeger cover then. It’s fucking awesome they’re doing covers of some of the samples within the album.

Is Bela Lugosi’s Dead sampled in Mezzanine?

despite the facile Banksyness of the visual/textual content

Well, Banksy IS in the band

This was super good

feel like I short-changed Horace Andy who probably never needs the shout out, but deserves it

I... am not really sure whether I liked this or not. something wasn't totally clicking, and I'm not sure what -- it wasn't the visual (heavy-handed but I was more or less expecting it to be), I don't think it was the arrangements (although it was a bit disappointing dissolved girl was playback, and I... wouldn't necessarily have put "levels" on the setlist). the energy felt 75% maybe?

really what is the deal with the "levels" bit? does it make any sense at all in the context of the show

Katherine yeah, it didn't really hit for me either.

xp I assumed it was some sort of commentary on tim bergling's death, maybe?

Maybe just hard to live up to the imaginative world that the original audio conjures

yeah