Saturday, March 06, 2010

Do Make Say Think in Seoul

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Do Make Say Think is one of my favorite bands, and they played in Seoul a couple Sundays ago. They play what is often labeled "Post-rock instrumental" - longer compositions, usually without vocals (save a few la la choruses), almost like Jazz, but with more of the dynamic contrast you hear in some kinds of rock music -- lots of loud/soft, and atmospherics. It's the perfect band for me, because I'm all about the bliss-out, wherever it can be found... and dear readers, it can be found here.

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So after a bit of searching to find the exact location of the venue, my buddy Evan and I headed down about twelve flights of stairs to the concert space, which was a big ol' cavernous room in the basement of a building not far from Hongik University's main gate. Evan and I grabbed seats on the risers at the back of the room, and watched On Sparrow Hills - an expat band, who reminded me of Frightened Rabbit, and did a good job of warming up the crowd, and then Vidulgi Ooyoo, a Korean bliss-out/shoegaze band with a female lead singer who didn't sing often enough, and who sounded, as Evan said, "Like the Cranberries got as high as f$*#" - especially when the singer was singing. I concur.

Here's a little of what the first two bands sounded like.


a picture of vidulgi ooyoo
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Then, after very long break between sets, Do Make Say Think came on. They didn't talk to the crowd much, other than a few "I see a lot of English teachers here today" kinds of cracks. Here's a bit of their sound -- note the loud/soft shifts, and sudden changes in arrangement - from their patented everybodyplaysatonce to a soloist and back, etc..

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But the problem, as always, is that live music is like nothing else. So watch this clip, but if you want to get a feel for what the show was really like, then play it as loud as possible, and project it life-size against a wall in your house, and then turn the projected life-size people into real people. That's what it was actually like to see.


I'm happy I went. I had a great time, and I'm thrilled that some of my favorite bands are finally coming to Korea: most of my favorite bands are not the arena-filling-type bands, so while Guns'n'Roses might will stop in here, Seoul is often skipped by smaller bands. It's not really my place to theorize why, but there you have it.
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But great show! It was also my goodbye hang-out with my man Evan, who's gone back to Canada now. More on him later.

Problem: beyond a certain point, unless it's Lady Gaga or something, concert photos look the same for pretty much every band.
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They have horns.
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The crowd was really into it. Most of them seemed to be very familiar with DMST, particularly the girl who was next to us on the bleachers, who nearly exploded in her seat once the headliners came on.
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome post! I love Vidulgi Ooyoo (and in fact won one of their discs from a contest that Indieful ROK held a while back) and I've been listening to the new Frightened Rabbit non-stop. Thanks for the info on Do Make Say Think ... I'll check it out for sure.

Have a good weekend!

dokebi said...

I also like the band. I think I came to know it by reading one of your blog posts actually.

Deb said...

Funny - I saw "They have horns" before I saw the pic - and after so much time working on "The Lion The Witch..." I was envisioning the people singing on stage having horns on their heads, rather than playing instruments...!

Unknown said...

hey if your readers want some video footage of DMST and 비둘기우유 from the VHall show, I put three vids up.

I'm not going to throw links up on your blog, but you can search the band names with Seoul and mine will appear.

I thought the show was wildly successful and was happy I paid the money to watch.

The vids are high quality.

Roboseyo said...

Go ahead and post the links, Gary. I'm easy that way.

Anonymous said...

hi thx for the review of that night. it is interesting for me to read your blog, specially about concerts.
keep your works continually..