We Will Probably Crumble

Hail To The Thief is on Soulseek now. It’s way too early for me to say much about the record, but these are my early impressions:

1) Even though I knew the songs before hearing the recorded versions, I can’t help but feel vaguely let down by the more straight ahead “rocking out” parts of “2+2=5” and “Go To Sleep”. That said, they’re okay songs. I like the intro part of “2+2=5” quite a bit.

2) Though I’ve only heard it twice as of this writing, I’m pretty sure that “Backdrifts” is one of the best things Radiohead have ever recorded. I’m in awe of that song. I felt this great rush of euphoria hearing it for the first time, if just because it sounded so much like a song I think I’ve always wished I could listen to, but hadn’t found.

God Don’t Want No Part Time Soldiers

Since I’ve mentioned Radiohead, I may as well go ahead and scare off the rest of the snob audience by bringing up the fact that I saw Zwan on Friday night. I was very impressed, they were a lot tighter and had a lot more stage presence than I was anticipating. I’ve been meaning to see Billy Corgan play live for a decade now, so it was good to finally please the teenager inside of me. I’ve heard enough live recordings of the man playing on good and bad nights to be fairly confident that this was probably a pretty good night for the band.

The highlights of the show defied my expectations – I’d been expecting to be bored by the longer jammy songs, but as it turned out, “Jesus, I/God’s Gonna Set This World On Fire”, “Mary Star of the Sea”, and “Spilled Milk” (or as I like to call it, “X.Y.2”) stood out as the most consistently engaging songs of the night. The “God’s Gonna Set This World On Fire” section of “Jesus, I” was fabulous, and sounded sort of like The Smashing Pumpkins born again as a sinister psychedelic gospel outfit. I was also surprised by the live versions of “Desire” and “Of A Broken Heart”, which both benefited greatly from starker arrangements and a decreased schmaltz factor.

Similarly, Jimmy Chamberlain’s drumming was a revelation. I had grown so used to hearing his performances buried under a wall of suffocating treble in his studio recordings with Corgan that hearing/feeling his drumming in a live setting made me understand what so many people have been raving about for years. The guy is powerful – he’s easily one of the hardest-hitting drummers that I’ve seen live.

I’m not so sure that the talents of Dave Pajo are being fully utilized in Zwan. It seemed to me that Pajo was mostly playing lead and effects parts while he played guitar, and he only switched to keyboard for a couple of songs. I don’t know what else the guy could do given the material, but I can’t help but feel that Corgan is missing an opportunity to capitalize on the fact that this guy is one of his sidemen. I don’t get that impression regarding Matt Sweeney or Paz Lenchantin’s roles in the band – they both play their supporting parts well, supply appealing backing vocals, and have a reasonable degree of second-banana charisma.

Here’s the setlist, for those who may be interested.

Jesus, I / God’s Gonna Set This World On Fire / Endless Summer / For Your Love / Lyric / El Sol / Honestly / Desire / Ride A Black Swan / Mary Star Of The Sea / Heartsong / Of A Broken Heart / Declarations of Faith / Settle Down // A New Poetry /// Spilled Milk

Unfortunately for me, “Baby Let’s Rock” was not performed, which probably would have been a lot more disappointing for me if I hadn’t already known that the likelihood of it being played was so low.