Crystal Stilts, Grass Widow, & The Beets Played Brooklyn Museum

On Saturday the above mentioned bands played a Todd P curated show at the Brooklyn Museum. It was part of the museum's First Saturday series. Bob Gruen was also on location with an exhibit and special discussion panel.

I arrived at the museum a bit later then I wanted, thanks MTA! The Beets were almost done their set at this point. Despite seeing them many times, and even booking them, I didn't even realize it was them on stage because the sound was so terrible. The stage was center in a long narrow room that was about 50% glass with very high ceilings. Now I'm no sound engineer (actually I was a long time ago) but that sounds like a bad combo for acoustics.

Like I said I missed most of The Beets so I won't comment any further on them but I was there for Grass Widow. They're one of those bands no one has ever heard of and then all of a sudden they play a show in NYC and they're suddenly everyone's favorite band. I had no idea what they sounded like so I had no expectations. After two songs I gave up on them. Not that they're a bad band, it's just that the sound was so awful I had to get out of there. I went to the deli down the street to pick up some supplies.

When I got back they had just finished and we were excited to see Crystal Stilts. I'm not going to pretend to be a huge fan but they're pretty good. By this point we had talked plenty of shit on the sound but I was hoping that for the headlining band shit would improve. What I didn't consider is the fact that Crystal Stilts likes the reverb... a lot.

They started their set and it was like mud soup. The excessive reverb effects were mixing with the excessive natural reverb in the room and it was just terrible. I was with a friend who's a pretty big fan of Stilts and he walked out after 4 songs. The rest of us made it through 5 maybe before we left. Damn. I guess I should have skipped the bands and checked out Gruen instead. In retrospect that would have been the wise move.

I have no pictures from the event but the museum asked people to photograph the bands and submit them to their Flickr group so there's plenty to see. Bob Gruen will comment on the ones he thinks are worth his critique.

Link:
Brooklyn Museum Flickr