Although we've lived in Los Angeles for several months now, we really haven't spent much time out and about, doing "LA" kind of things. At first, we were focused on moving in; then there was a lot of travel; then there was recovering from the travel, et cetera. Our big chance to get out and start to explore the town was over the holiday / New Year's season--and while we did indeed see a good chunk of the town, getting sick really put a damper on those plans.
So starting this week, we finally started checking some things off on our "explore LA" list.
Since I started coming to LA for business, I've wanted to catch a concert at Largo. I first heard about it as sort of an artists' hang-out frequented by Jon Brion, Fiona Apple, and a number of others musicians like--I think I was reading about Fiona when I first heard the name. Evidently, Fiona Apple--who is notoriously uncomfortable on tour, will spontaneously take to the stage at Largo every now and again during Brion's regularly scheduled Friday sessions. But I never was able to get up there while on business, and even though Diana and I live fairly close by, we hadn't found the time to get there since making the move out here.
Well, we finally made it there on Thursday. We were there to see Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, the alt.country musicians who found some popular celebrity after Gillian was included on on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
Largo itself was a great venue. As I mentioned, it's quite close to our house. We met up after work and drove on over there in the rain (Southern California has, evidently, forgotten how to be Southern California, at least weather-wise). Largo is (now--it relocated a short while ago) housed in an old theatre called the Coronet, and definitely has that theatre-style set up, as you can see in the photo above. The audience members are seated in old wooden chairs, starting almost right at the foot of the stage. Whoever set up the audio did a fantastic job--the mics were perfectly placed, and you could hear every sound with crystal clarity. 
The show itself was great, too. I'd never seen Welch and Rawlings before, at least not live and in person, but it was clear even to a first-timer that this concert was a bit different than their usual fare. For the evenings show, they were not even billed as "Gillian Welch and David Rawlings," in fact--instead, they were listed as the "David Rawlings Machine." Rawlings, who never gets enough credit for either his backing vocals or for his guitar picking, took lead for the night. It was great to see that role reversal, and to get to hear David a bit more--but regardless of who is playing lead, the killer thing about the pair is their minimalistic instrumentation, the great guitar work, and, above all, their harmony. Their voices are so in sync, and complement each other so well, it's just unfair. Just stunningly beautiful. Check out YouTube for some good examples like these.
They played mostly Rawlings tunes, weaving in a few better known Welch/Rawlings collaborations and some genre classics like "Jackson." For some songs, like a fun rendition of "Brand New Key," they brought up other musicians, adding (at one point) a piano, stand-up bass, another guitarist, another vocalist, a trumpet, and a percussion kit. It was really a lot of fun for both of us, even though Diana wasn't that familiar with their music before the evening started. But she sure did know this song they covered for their encore (not my video, not the best quality--but good sound):
Friday morning started early, with an X PRIZE breakfast for the attendees at TED--a lot of cool people in the audience. Having started so early, I was able to cut out a bit early with my coworker and friend Mike , who is in effect my resident LA cultural adviser. A musician, foodie, and movie buff, he's given me countless tips for fun events--and one suggestion I'd been waiting to to take was to catch a movie at the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood--supposedly one of the best movie theatres in the country.
Arclight isof a different ilk than some of my other favorite theatres (the Uptown in Washington, DC; the Colombus in Providence): whereas those are old theatres with single, monolithic screens, the Arclight is a mutiplex full of high technology and modern comfort. We didn't make it to their big Cinerama Dome, but even in one of the smaller theatres, it was clear why movie buffs would enjoy Arclight. Great sound, good picture (well, we saw a 3D movie, so that may not be the best sample)--and you even got a bit of a welcoming speech from a staff member! Cool place, we'll definitely be going back.
The movie we saw, by the way, was Neil Gaiman's Coraline. Definitely a solid movie--we had some issues with the pacing in places, but the story is good and the visuals are stunning. Worth checking out!
After the movie, we went out a grabbed a meal at at Thai place called Palms. The food was good, but the Thai Elvis was great!
0 comments:
Post a Comment