Friday, September 29, 2006

Good Charlotte - Live at Google

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Good Charlotte, 9/27/06

I work for Google, and I happened to visit the Googleplex, corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley, on Wednesday, which happened to be Google's 8th birthday, which happened to be celebrated with a free acoustic set by Good Charlotte. Whee! I have to say this kind of thing never happened when I worked at McKinsey. The closest thing we got to entertainment was new partners dancing in tutus at the holiday party as a hazing rite.

I'd heard of the band but didn't know much about them. Their hit "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" has been in heavy rotation on my "workout" playlist on my ipod for quite a while. I hoped they'd sing it, and I wasn't disappointed.

The whole band didn't show up - just the twin Madden brothers - singer Joel and guitarist Benji. Their 20-minute set included a lot of chatter, well-received comments like "Yahoo sucks", and 3 songs: "Girls and Boys", "Just Wanna Live", and the aforementioned "Lifestyles". They made jokes about googling themselves. The crowd of roughly 1500 googlers seemed to enjoy themselves, although no mosh pit formed.

Good Charlotte was better than I'd expect a band whose singer dates Hilary Duff to be. Their lyrics were smart and funny, and they had decent harmonies that you can't really detect when they're plugged in. I promise I'll never confuse them with the band with the singer who's married to Avril Lavigne again.

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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Rock Star: Supernova - Week 10

Dilana - Behind Blue Eyes / Original

Once again, the home video footage painted Dilana in an unflattering light. Her aversion to listening to the original version of "Behind Blue Eyes" was odd and added to her cocky image. I thought she did a nice job freshening up the tune although the version was similar to what she's done in the past - stark opening followed by crescendo. Her original didn't do anything for me. 40 minutes after watching it, I can't remember what it was about much less a lyric or tune

Magni - Back in the USSR / Original

I think Magni is the least original of the remaining 5. While he always gives a capable performance, he never rocks it out of the park. I'd agree with Gilby that his original had more fire than any of his past performances, but that's still not enough.

Storm Large - Suffragette City / What the What is Ladylike


Wow, Storm raised the game tonight. I thought she really eclipsed Dilana. Not only is she hotter than Dilana, she has a great pure voice, and she can write. I really liked her original. It definitely sounded like something that at least Tommy would like as it has a slight hip hop hook to the chorus, while still rockin. She also did a good job with the Bowie song and showed she was comfortable with Navarro on stage - he didn't outshine her.

Lukas Rossi - Living on a Prayer / Head Spin

I actually hated Lukas' version of the Bon Jovi song. I thought he was trying to force his interpretation on it, without really feeling the song. And his slowed down version wasn't all that fresh, as Bon Jovi frequently does the song acoustically. But I really liked his original. He has such energy and rawness - I can't take my eyes off him when he performs.

Toby Rand - Mr. Brightside / Original

After impressing Gilby in the songwriting challenge, Toby showed his performance wasn't a fluke by coming up with one of the best originals. It was definitely catchy and entertaining and he worked the room (literally). I thought he gave a nice energetic performance of the Killers track too, even if it wasn't anything new.

PREDICTIONS

Bottom 3: Dilana, Magni, Storm
Going home (if only one): Magni
Going home (if two): Magni, Dilana
Encore: Toby
Singing with the band: Storm

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