Maroon 5 Not Terrible Anymore, Played MSG
We're sure to take a bunch of flack about this, but bear with us for a sec. Maroon 5? Not so bad. In fact, at least judging by the first two singles off their latest album, they've moved past the tasteless soccer-mom rock into a legitimately perverted cocaine-sex territory (Exhibit 1: Their amazingly over the top video for 'Wake Up Call'). And that's a good thing. Combine that with a clever SNL/Samberg cameo on Iran So Far and an arena debut at MSG this week with Kanye West coming out as a surprise guest, we're officially impressed. Watch out. (pic via Jen DeRosa's Flickr)
'Fire' at Studio B
Forget the Arcade Fire, last night at Studio B, German electro-dance-punk-whathaveyou group Digitalism brought the actual fire to Banker street...or at least the fire trucks. The highly anticipated stateside arrival of the Album of the Year contenders was interrupted around 12:45 by an alarm, which caused the evacuation of the approximately 300 people in attendance into the cold, wet night. Several fire engines responded to the scene to discover that there was no fire, and all signs pointed to it being the smoke machine that set it off. Oopsies!
Terminal 5 Opens
And so the battle of the giant, unappealing midtown venues gains another player. The National played the debut concert at Terminal 5 last night, and general opinion on the space seems to be mixed. Some say it was ok, but many others are complaining that it might be even worse than Roseland! The Horror! While there still is time for the Bowery gang to finish fixing the place up as they start to host concerts, we suspect that all the time and effort put in will really just prove one thing: It's impossible to please 3000 standing room only people at the same time in one room. We just hope that places like this will start to up the ante, if only slightly, so the Hammersteins and the Roselands of the world don't feel content resting on what they've got. (pic via Mucow's Flickr)
