MUSIC MARATHON: On Tuesday evening, we attended this year's incarnation of "Deck the Hall Ball," an annual concert hosted by KNRK, Seattle's 'alternative' radio station. (I put 'alternative' in quotes, because when a genre of music has been around 20 plus years and is very much in the mainstream, 'alternative' sounds like a misnomer to me. But I digress.)
The concert was at Key Arena, the facility that used to host the NBA Super Sonics. Now, since the Sonics were stolen - er, left town - 10-plus years ago, it's home to the WNBA Storm, and holds concerts and other special events.
We got to the venue a little before 3 p.m. and were on site for every single minute of the show, and definitely watched the vast majority of it. I have to hand it to the stage crew/producer(s). The flow of the bands was an amazingly well oiled machine. Every single one of them started on time. Impressive!
Deck the Hall Ball is a concert at KeyArena hosted by 107.7 The End, a prominent local radio station. This year's Deck the Hall Ball (known as DTHB25 due to it being the event's 25th incarnation)'s lineup was composed of J GRGRY, J Roddy Walston and the Business, Joywave, Portugal. The Man, ODESZA, The Lumineers, and The Killers.
The concert began with JGRGRY spending several minutes mumbling about something we couldn't understand. Then again, this may have been affected by KeyArena's terrible acoustics and speakers (the stadium was designed in the 1960s to look cool).
During most of JGRGRY's performance and a bit of J Roddy Walston's act, we waited in the lobby for dad to come.
Joywave is best known for their collaboration with Big Data for the 2013 song "Dangerous".
Portugal. The Man, the band that came after Joywave, spent several minutes performing inane psychedelic compositions that tried (and failed) to be like Pink Floyd. This went on to a poor cover of Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2.
Odesza prominently featured drummers on the front of the stage for most of their performance.
The Killers, while they put on an otherwise entertaining performance, bizarrely decided to put a giant ♂ on a block at the front of the stage, which was there for their entire show. Meanwhile, three women who featured in their show for approximately 15 seconds were caged-in by cylinders branded with ♀s. The misogynistic implications that came with that seemed to have succeeded in alienating a large portion of their audience (me included).
My thoughts about the show align pretty closely with CJ's. JGRGRY looked to be trying his hardest to be Bowie/Ziggy Stardustesque. Sorry, only one human can do that act, and it has been done.
J Roddy Watson and the Business worked hard and were entertaining.
Joywave had a distinctive sound.
Before the concert, I 'warned' the kids that Portugal. The Man is a jam band (known for playing long, looping things that aren't like 'normal' songs), and that their act would not sound much like their smash hit "Feel it Still" at all. (Fun fact: We heard "Feel it Still" all over Europe when we were there in September.
Anyway, I was right. PTM played jam after jam, looping in and out of their own stuff and some interesting covers. I think CJ's review might have been a little harsh, however. I think he would have liked their Floyd-inspired music more if he hadn't seen the real Roger Waters TWICE this year.
Odesza was so much fun! Their music is eclectic, often featuring guest vocalists on the more ballad-like numbers. Other times, their music is totally percussion driven, with a live drum line. Probably my favorite act of the night. I loved their 'spacey' intro, as well.
The Lumineers were professional, well polished, and you could tell they were used to being the headliners, ha ha. Very listenable.
The last act of the night was The Killers. It was this band that prompted me to get tickets to this show, truth be told.
Unfortunately, they kind of lost me the second their set lit up, before they even started playing.
Now, I get that their current hit single is "The Man." I actually like the song (even though it's full of macho puffery, for lack of a better descriptor). That said, why you make the male symbol front and center on your stage for the whole show, I'm not sure what the point of that was. It was THE MOST IMPORTANT THING on an otherwise sparse set. Ironically, band members were obscured by the big male symbol at times. It lit up all sorts of different ways. It was just weird. I wasn't the only one who felt that way, either. All four of us after the concert chimed in with 'What was THAT all about?"
And don't get me started about the 45 minute wait in a concession stand line. Unbelievable.
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