The recording is being shared as 16 bit/44.1 kHz stereo FLACs.

Phoenix & Blood Orange
The Apollo Theater, NYC
May 13, 2013

Blood Orange set:

01-I'm Sorry We Lied
02-Sutphin Boulevard
03-Champagne Coast
04- -never good enough-
05-Bad Girls
06-Forget It
07- -maybe if you let me be your lover-
08- -all you got for me-

Phoenix set:

09-Entertainment
10-Lasso
11-Lisztomania
12-Long Distance Call
13-The Real Thing
14-S.O.S. in Bel Air
15-Fences
16-Love is Like a Bankrupt Sunset
17-Too Young/Girlfriend
18-Trying to Be Cool/Drakkar Noir
19-Chloroform
20-Armistice
21-1901

Encore:

22-Countdown
23-Don't
24-Rome/Entertainment reprise

Lineage: Stealth recorded and minimally produced by mrsaureus, sitting in the first mezzanine about two thirds of the way back, clear view of the stage, but with the bottom deck of the top mezzanine uncomfortable close overhead. Core-Sound High End Binaurals (DPA-4060 capsules) to Sony PCM-M10 (48 kHZ, 24 bit), WavePad Sound Editor to provide modest global amplification, cut into songs and convert to 26 bit/ 44.1 kHz FLACs. If people want it, I can share a 24/48 version. This is an audience recording that aims to document the experience of being in the crowd at the show, and features occasionally loud but appropriate crowd noise. In this case, due to my purgatorical location and the overall lower volume from the stage, there is more crowd noise than usual, but it still sounds pretty good. This is the first time this recording is being shared.

This was my first time at the Apollo Theater, and it�s beautiful, but I sure wish my seats were better. Unless you got lucky in the ticket lottery, this was a hard ticket to get, with not much showing up on Stub Hub, and what did being astronomically priced. So I ended up paying a lot for the worst seats I�ve sat in at any show in years: a claustrophobic spot pretty far back in the first mezzanine with the deck of the top mezzanine close overhead. The theater is well designed, with the pitch of the deck perfect so that the stage is well framed from where ever you sit. But if you stand, which people did and which I normally always prefer, then your head is too high to get the right stage view.

First mezzanine was also the land of the loosely engaged. Lots and lots of people didn�t realize there was a show going on. If you�re a concert taper, it is impossible not to be at least occasionally annoyed by the loud, oblivious talker, and you see a lot of people on DIME ranting about this, but in the interests of fairness, let me give three points in their defense: First, people come to shows for all different but quite legitimate reasons, with all different aims and all different interests. To expect everybody around me to adhere to my aims would be indefensibly self-focussed. Second, no behavioral norms of any sort have ever been established for rock shows, in contrast to classical and jazz shows. Pretty much any outrageous behavior is permitted and often encouraged by the band (I draw a practical line here at the types �dancing� that amount to assault and battery.) Third, the band is undoubtedly grateful for every ticket sold. Even tickets sold to knuckleheads. Worst case isn�t a house full of loud talkers, worst case is an empty house.

My whole approach to life is descriptive rather than prescriptive, so no blame, no hate, but one might academically wonder what people who never at any point during the show even obliquely acknowledge that a performance is going on are even doing there. They had to pay money, right? I�ve thought about this a lot and I believe two things account for it. The first is that in any group of eight, nine, however many people, exactly one of them actually wanted to come to the show. The rest of them came along because it �sounded fun,� and would, in fact, just as soon be absolutely anywhere else. The second is that people are basically stone bored by essentially everything except for porn. Well, porn and talking relentlessly about something that happened to them TODAY, usually an anecdote in which they are an outrageously aggrieved party.

All right, then. How were the bands, you ask? Well, that more than made up for any minor annoyances. Very strong start with Blood Orange, the electronica project of Dev Hynes aka Lightspeed Champion. Tasty grooves marbled with searing guitar, ranging from celestial abstraction to a southern rawky funk. If you like Sinkane, and you should like Sinkane, then you�ll like this.

If, after Johnny Hallyday�s triumph at the Beacon last year, there remains any question about whether the French can rock, then I hope this show retires that issue once and for all. Phoenix rocked an adoring crowd in a terrific small venue in a show that I believe is the kick off (not counting TV and Coachella) of their 2013 Bankrupt! tour, which will cover Europe but include relatively few US shows, mostly at large venues and outdoor festivals. So it was a treat to catch them at the Apollo, even from the first mezzanine, and I�ll very likely catch them again in Barclay�s in October, with better seats next time.