Spring Break
MFA pales before the Middle East
by Andrea Fineman
Managing Editor
Arts | 3/18/08
Posted online at 2:04 AM EST on 3/18/08
"Dear MFA,
Please buy some new audio equipment.
Love, Andrea."
This was the introduction I wrote upon leaving the Museum of Fine Arts on Friday night after the first of the Mountain Goats' two area-shows last weekend. The museum is no stranger to rock concerts; such indie rock luminaries as the Dirty Projectors (who will be performing here at Cholmondeley's later this month) and the Blow have performed there in the last several months. One would not expect a venue that often hosts indie rock shows to be so ill-equipped. One would be grossly mistaken.
You know that blunt, hollow feedback sound that comes from holding a guitar too close to an amp? It sounds approximately like this: hhnnnnnNNNNhhhhrrrrrr. Instead of delicate strings or keyboard figures, the Mountain Goats' songs were overlaid with a thick swath of feedback.
The Mountain Goats themselves were overlaid with some strange lighting effects. The lights appeared to be directly above the members of the band, shining vertically down on the musicians and giving their faces a campfire scary story look. Colored lights along the ceiling at the back of the stage shone on the drummer, creating further visual strangeness. One might expect the MFA to have more artistic (or at least more effective) lighting design-after all, what institution is more concerned with aesthetics than a museum? However, one would again be grossly mistaken.
Combine these two very obvious deficiencies with the distinct lack of energy at the venue (one concertgoer described it as "high school auditorium") and with what I assume to be the band's preconceptions of performing in an art museum, and the result was a very strange experience indeed.
Perhaps the strangeness worked to the advantage of the opening act, the Moaners, from Chapel Hill, NC. The band, consisting of a female singer and guitarist and a female drummer, sounded larger than it was. I was surprised to enter the theater and see what I'd been hearing from the lobby. Although its loud Texas blues-rock was a little underwhelming, the group ended with a saw solo, which never fails to impress a crowd. Maybe the weirdness of the MFA-as-rock-venue also precipitated this strange but entertaining exchange onstage between songs:
Please buy some new audio equipment.
Love, Andrea."
This was the introduction I wrote upon leaving the Museum of Fine Arts on Friday night after the first of the Mountain Goats' two area-shows last weekend. The museum is no stranger to rock concerts; such indie rock luminaries as the Dirty Projectors (who will be performing here at Cholmondeley's later this month) and the Blow have performed there in the last several months. One would not expect a venue that often hosts indie rock shows to be so ill-equipped. One would be grossly mistaken.
You know that blunt, hollow feedback sound that comes from holding a guitar too close to an amp? It sounds approximately like this: hhnnnnnNNNNhhhhrrrrrr. Instead of delicate strings or keyboard figures, the Mountain Goats' songs were overlaid with a thick swath of feedback.
The Mountain Goats themselves were overlaid with some strange lighting effects. The lights appeared to be directly above the members of the band, shining vertically down on the musicians and giving their faces a campfire scary story look. Colored lights along the ceiling at the back of the stage shone on the drummer, creating further visual strangeness. One might expect the MFA to have more artistic (or at least more effective) lighting design-after all, what institution is more concerned with aesthetics than a museum? However, one would again be grossly mistaken.
Combine these two very obvious deficiencies with the distinct lack of energy at the venue (one concertgoer described it as "high school auditorium") and with what I assume to be the band's preconceptions of performing in an art museum, and the result was a very strange experience indeed.
Perhaps the strangeness worked to the advantage of the opening act, the Moaners, from Chapel Hill, NC. The band, consisting of a female singer and guitarist and a female drummer, sounded larger than it was. I was surprised to enter the theater and see what I'd been hearing from the lobby. Although its loud Texas blues-rock was a little underwhelming, the group ended with a saw solo, which never fails to impress a crowd. Maybe the weirdness of the MFA-as-rock-venue also precipitated this strange but entertaining exchange onstage between songs:
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