The month of August has been filled with great outdoor concerts in New York and I was lucky enough to get tickets to a few of them. There really is nothing like hearing music on a clear summer night. The first was summer stage in central park with The National headlining. Plants and Animals, the first opening band, played as the sun was setting and the small gated arena started filling with people. The three guys in the band were all wearing large sunglasses and wailing away. In all of their songs the lead singer would scream into the mic, and by the end of the set, he definitely lost his voice. The second opening band was Yeasayer which was really the most interesting. They had a great eclectic sound that mixed dark british post-punk with psychedelic, middle eastern, and southern rhythms. Then, The National came on and played an amazing set. At first it seemed like they had a problem with the sound and the deep vocals of the lead singer were blown out, but it was quickly fixed. I had seen them open for The Arcade Fire and they only played a few songs off of their album Alligator. At summer stage, they played songs from all their albums and were much more animated. The lead singer smashed a small rhythm instrument and went into the crowd at one point. They also had a small horn section which enhanced the songs.

The second concert was The Black Keys at McCarren Pool in Brooklyn (which is a convenient 15 minute walk from my apartment). There were also two opening bands; the first being Love As Laughter. Apparently, another band was supposed to play, but they couldn’t at the last minute, so Love as Laughter was the replacement. I had seen them before in small venues, but I thought they were amazing at the pool. They really rocked out, and by the end of their set people around me were blown away. The next opening band, Tapes ‘n Tapes, was not nearly as good. They started with a few disjointed fast and loud songs and then played a few others that could have been someone else entirely. I was not impressed. After a little waiting, The Black Keys finally came on and were insane. The drum kit was setup on a platform on the front edge of the stage, so the crowd could really see the drummer pounding away. I couldn’t believe the sound they put out with only two people, but it was like a bomb hit they had so much energy. They played all the classics from previous albums and even translated a few from their new album, Attack and Release, sans keyboard effects. I thought the live interpretations were even better than the ones with the keyboard on the album. Overall, this was by far the best of the concerts I saw in August.

The last one was Wilco, also at McCarren Pool, which was pretty good. I had been wanting to see Wilco play since collage when I was really into them. I don’t think there was an opening band, though there could have been because I was a little late getting there. Wilco played almost 30 songs (a good mix from different albums) with two encores which I couldn’t believe. One of the funniest parts of the concert was when they got the crowd clapping to the beat of one song and somehow it got modified from the traditional clap clap to clap-clap, clap. They played so many songs, I thought it was almost too much. Overall, it was a good concert, but in my opinion not as powerful as The Black Keys or even The National concerts. This could be that my tastes have changed, or maybe it was that the crowd was entirely different at the Wilco show.

There is definitely some sort of organic science to an amazing concert, but I’m not going to attempt an elaborate analysis. I was definitely lucky to be able to experience these live concerts, because in New York the rule is: if you really want to see something, there are at least 20,000 other people thinking the same thing. (Also, scalpers aka. TicketMaster are trying to make as much money as they can off that thought). Cheers!

Since the first computer games there have been building games/simulations that encourage and reward creativity. The early great simulations like Railroad Tycoon and Sim City to the strategy games like Civilization, Master of Orion and X-Com were pioneers in defining what a game could be. The next logical step in the epic game promises to be Will Wright’s Spore which is set to be released in September. Essentially, it allows the player to assume the God-like role of creating and evolving creatures. It is also a tool for creating 3-D rendered and animated creatures with ease. Another, profound aspect of the game is how it integrates user-generated content from other players universes together to create a richer experience. I’m not sure if I’ve seen social networking/sharing so deeply rooted in a game concept before. This also raises the question, when does Spore eclipse being a game and turn into something else entirely? The stages of this epic defying game seems to be directly influenced by the documentary film powers of ten. It begins in the tide-pool phase where your creature grows as it accumulates points for surviving and finding food. Eventually, your creature crawls on the land, and as it evolves further, mates and establishes a tribe. The tribe over time will then expand into a civilization which will then travel into space. Along the way the player can customize and evolve the creature and the structures it creates. The creature creator demo is scheduled to be released in June. Here is a video of a creature being created and an up to date fan site.