With a price tag of "only" ¥8000 and a one-drink minimum - bringing the grand total to ¥8500 - and 5 or so openers, it was pretty much a no-brainer to see Daft Punk at Makuhari Messe in Chiba two weeks ago. I'm not a big fan of dance music and even less interested in going to dance events, but with all the talk of the LED pyramid and the incredible set they played circulating since their 2006 Coachella set, I would definitely suffer through 3 hours on the train to see the show.
Before going to the show, I actually did get a chance to listen to Daft Punk's set at Coachella from 2006. Without the grandeur of the pyramid and the light show keeping me in a trance, what stood out to me was how the set was more or less completely modular - instead of playing songs straight through with possibly a few alterations, each and every song had been torn apart and reconstucted with their entire catalog functioning as a source from which they drew bits and pieces. Song structures changed, the effects on certain parts changed, the superimposition of melodies and harmonies upon one another changed. Every song, melody, and beat was recontextualized.
The show was exactly as I expected, except for running around the venue - really just a massive convention center - looking for a coatroom that I had heard they had the night before. But a band that I've had on my Shuffle for the last week reminded me of Daft Punk's style of arranging songs for live shows and that show two weeks ago.
When I saw the Wrens in July 2005 at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis, I was completely surprised at what an incredible performance they put on. I had been a big fan of the band since I got The Meadowlands back in the fall of 2003, so I expected a rehashing of that album and a few other songs I wouldn't know with the average excitement and spontaneity that comes with the territory of playing live. Dodging these expectations the Wrens, like Daft Punk, completely recontextualized their songs. Instead of culling together pieces of different songs to create new arrangements, the Wrens simply created new instrumental parts practically to the point where all that the performed songs had in common with their album versions were key melodies, most of them being the vocals.
So what I love and respect about this approach to a live show is that the band put a hell of a lot of effort into putting together their show. It's not taking their albums on the road and playing songs from them straight down with no variation. Considering that it's pretty difficult for bands these days to make a lot of money off of selling albums and other recordings, I'm surprised that there aren't a lot more bands that make the music in their live shows so unique.
Looking back on these two live acts that completely alter the album version of their songs, it's probably for the best anyway that the Wrens and Daft Punk keep busy in this way. The Wrens haven't released an album since The Meadowlands in fall 2003, and their album before that, Secaucus, came out in 1996. Daft Punk's last studio record, Human After All is from early 2005 and their previous album Discovery was released in 2001. That means the Wrens are on a one studio album about every five years clip, and Daft Punk is on a slightly more productive one studio album every four years pace. In all, ignoring the Wrens' legal problems that kept them from releasing the Meadowlands any earlier, these are two bands who don't stick to the industry standard of a new album every two years. I would be ecstatic if a band that does release a new album every two years reimagines their songs for live shows like the Wrens and Daft Punk, but as things stand I'll take these two groups who make up for their sparsely released studio albums with an exciting live show over unimaginatively performed songs any day.
