Annie - Tribeca Grand, 4.14.05

Since I'm a little late in chiming in on this one, I can tell you that my thoughts on Annie's Thursday show are somewhere between Central Village and Peephole (the bad) and Brooklyn Vegan and Fluxblog (the good). Which is not really a surprise - I went into the show with mixed expectations. I think Anniemal is a fantastic album, in fact I'm only liking it more with time, but I got the sense Annie would be a mixed bag live. The dynamics and details of her songs seem difficult to capture live. To be fair, Thursday's show with the Animals (or more likely, the Anniemals) as her backing band was just their fifth ever, and there were enough good moments that I can see them being a lot better in a year. "Come Together" sounded really nice, as the band finally came together (no pun intended), and the unreleased song "The Wedding" followed up well.

Early on though, they just didn't have it - they were not tight, not particularly confident, and the sound was off. Annie's vocals were low in the mix, and the band seemed to just plod along. Part of "Chewing Gum" vocals were sung by a band member through a vocoder, and he missed his cue once or twice. It also was way, way packed. I think the Tribeca Grand is a solid place to see a DJ (drink prices aside), but I'm mixed on it for live music.

Of course, the above aside, this show was all about the hype. Everyone in the crowd, whether they enjoyed it or not, left with a solid "Losing My Edge" moment. I'd be curious to know how Annie's live show develops with some practice, but for the time being I'll stick to my headphones. Though Anniemal deserves the attention, the live show has some catching up to do.

Oh and on the pictures I mentioned - mine came out just OK, nothing like Brooklyn Vegan's typically excellent shots. Head over there instead. (I'm really happy with my Sonic Youth Maxwell's photos though - those will be up soon.)