summer close

well, the air is getting a little crisper here in los angeles and summer seems to be winding down. in my mind, we pretty much officially put it to bed with the underworld performance at the bowl this past sunday which marks the end of the year's world music series.

paul oakenfold kicked it off with carmen rizzo and bored the bowl with played-out trance anthems. poor paul never quite could make the cut beyond his early success breaking other people's reasonably good records to pilled out ravers. growing his hair out didn't get him any closer to the next level either, now not only does he sound tired, but he looks like one of those cavemen from the geico commercials. arrogant bastard also shamelessly promo'd his record-label "perfecto music" in the video visuals. when his logo wasn't spinning around like so much bad powerpoint, it was emblazoned on a hot asian chick who in a purple bodysuit with the perfecto label on her chest. subtle...

underworld started slow with tracks from their forthcoming album "oblivion with bells". note to underworld: if you haven't done a new album in 3 years, you might want to warm us up a little with some old stuff. the new stuff was somewhere between the old breaky beats and the newer atmospheric electronica they've showed off on efforts like the breaking and entering soundtrack. regardless, they returned to form in the second half with rez cowgirl, 100 days off, bornslippy and king of snake. freakin' fantastic stuff. karl hyde is still a great performer and they always put on a solid visual show. they did "jumbo" as an encore, which was a strange choice that was a little anti-climactic. regardless, one of the best bowl performances i've seen in a while and rivaled a strong performance by groove armada earlier in the summer.