Daft Punk @ Lollapalooza (2007)

Many of you who read this are probably familiar with how sploogey I was over DP's Coachella 2006 set. Well, I paid 80 bucks to watch them do it again. Two things about this though:

1) Minor tweaks were made (different stuttering, addition of "Burnin'" in between "Around the World / Harder Better" and "Too Long (Reprise)"
2) They did an encore I didn't know about, including interpolating the "One More Time" vocal over Stardust's "Music Sounds Better With You" (which Bangalter co-wrote)
3) It was TOTALLY WORTH IT and I screamed myself hoarse, which bodes real well for this show I have to play tonight.

Damn, even knowing the laser show was coming, it was still totally amazing. I'm not too surprised very little changed between May of last year and now, because the light show was so intricate that it was probably all that they've been doing since Discovery, except for the couple of weeks it took them to excrete Human After All.

The lowlights included some punk kids who decided to start a mosh pit next to us during "Da Funk," and this other weird kid who went alone but joined in with the other kids and just HAD to do his terrible version of the Robot. I would have either a) joined in or b) gave them a good scolding, but the main instigator was a couple girls, and really, shoving and scolding a girl was not in my game plan for the night.

The other thing that sucked was LCD Soundsystem playing across the field from DP right before them, meaning we had to leave LCD halfway through to secure a reasonable spot to watch DP from. I hadn't been expecting too much from LCD but they were really good. The contrast between James Murphy the nervous blabbering guy in pajamas and James Murphy the screaming incantatory shaman was highly amusing. Anyone who was there know what the mic was that he was using? It sort of looked like one of those mics that Mussolini would issue proclamations from on his balcony in Italy in the '30s. And that drummer was totally speed-Krautrocking it up, he was a machine.

Also saw M.I.A., but she had a sore throat and did half-hearted at best renditions of stuff. She cut "Pull Up the People" just as it was starting and began wishing aloud that her set was over about halfway through. Bit of a bummer. They never managed to pick up steam because there was a 30-second gap between every song while they conversed about what songs she would be able to pull off with her bad throat. She still gave the booty gyrations the old college try though, so points for that.

I wish I could go to shows and not have to bear with listening to the conversations around me. I always feel like I'm surrounded by idiots. (Aside from my friends.)