Infected Mushroom, Paradise Boston

Infected Mushroom just lied to my face, and made me walk out. I just paid $50 to watch people pretend to make music. It was insulting to the audience, and I can only hope they feel like complete frauds, though I doubt it.

When we bought the tickets, I pretty much expected a DJ set, and at some point our friends pointed out, "no, they play instruments now", which sounded promising. However what we actually saw was some guy bashing away aimlessly at a set of v-drums that had nothing to do whatsoever with the sound coming out of the speakers. Note that I was sitting on the speakers, so it was pretty easy to keep track. Many points where the sound would be a riding cymbal, and his sticks weren't in the air, or the bass drum kicks had nothing to do with the rate at which he was kicking his drum thinga. LAME. I have no evidence that the guitarist and keyboard player weren't playing, they seemed to be, but who the hell is to say? If they're willing to drag around an entire electronic drum kit, who's to say they aren't willing to lie about the rest of their instruments to? They did have wires coming out of them, and the guitar pedals did have lights on them, so maybe it was just so far down in the mix as to be indistinguishable.

I go to a lot of electronic music shows. NIN many times, KMFDM, Skinny Puppy, oHgr, Thrill Kill Kult, Ministry, Hanzel und Gretyl, and on and on. I've seen laptops crash, and lead singers have to chat with the audience while the rest of the band frantically tries to fix it. I understand that a lot of things simply cannot be played. I expect there to be backing tracks, or that if a keyboard player hits a key, it might make more than one sound, that's fine. But to just go out and pretend to play, and lie to a roomfull of people, that's just wrong.

I would have respected them if it had just been turntables, a keyboard for some played fills or whatever, and a mic. I probably would have stayed, and not flipped off the band and walked out.

No pictures of these guys, I wa too annoyed. I did take pictures of one of the openers, and when I figure out who they were, I'll post them. The first opener (which I have photos of) was a really good jazzy/reggae/rockey fusioney group. Their singer sounded great and the crowd didn't just stand around as is usual with opening bands. The second opener was a good DJ set, though he had some pretty dork-tacular moves. He didn't take himself too seriously though and it was pretty fun.

Infected Mushroom though? Skip it, go watch a normal DJ and you won't feel taken advantage of.

This reminded me of a rant I read several years ago on the very same subject:
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2003/10/