mistressofmuses

Last Friday was the other concert that we went to go see:


Aesthetic Perfection, doing an old-school set, plus genCAB and Whorticulture opening.

This one was cutting it a little closer to get there, since I wasn't able to leave work at all early, but luckily the class we were closing at work didn't keep me longer than usual, either. I was able to wear most of what I was going to wear to work, and change what little I needed to on the drive there, haha.

We actually wound up being down there earlier than needed, and had to circle like vultures for about fifteen minutes until one of the driving lanes turned into a parking lane at 7:00. As usual we car-bar/pre-gamed for a bit, then headed to the venue.

We weren't late this time, so we got to see our first opener, Whorticulture.



Whorticulture is a local band, and they've hit at least a little bit of success! We last saw them opening for Solar Fake (last year? the year before?). They got to play Dark Force Fest last month, which was pretty cool.

I've been impressed every time I've seen them, and even having only ever seen them live as an opening band, their songs have been memorable enough that I recognize them every time.

I always figure "hey, I should buy a CD!" and then don't have merch money, so this time was going to be the time! ...They do not have CDs at their merch table. I poked around on Bandcamp and discovered that this is because they do not have any albums... just nine singles released over the course of the last six years, haha. So I did buy their various singles, haha.

Their set was great, as they have been every time I've seen them, and even only getting to play four songs.

Three more Whorticulture pics + a music video embed

"Okay, hold on a minute. Time for an on-purpose wardrobe malfunction!"

Watch on YouTube

Here's their song from last year, "Faust," which I quite like. The video is them being dramatically gothy in the Molly Brown House Museum, which is fun, too.

After that was genCAB. They were supposed to open the last time Aesthetic Perfection came, but had to cancel because the singer had Covid.



Unfortunately I found them solidly... meh. They weren't terrible, but I found myself getting a little bored. I couldn't understand more than a handful of words out of each song (just kind of nondescriptly loud and yell-y.) The singer also seemed... shy? Like he didn't want to look at the audience, ha. He's the synth player for Aesthetic Perfection while they're touring, so I feel like he's had a good tutor in stage presence, but... I mean, I'd be petrified and hate being on stage, so. Glad to have gotten to see them, but not someone I'd seek out to see again/look for as a headliner.

Three more of genCAB

Not really a "good" picture, but I liked the dramatic silhouettes.

And then, Aesthetic Perfection!


This is by far the best picture I got for the night, ha.

It was exciting to see him back, since he swore that the last tour would be the last one in the US ever. (He doesn't live in the US anymore, and he's always very open about the business side of being an artist. Basically it's just prohibitively expensive to tour, in a way that doesn't work out as a financial decision. He's said he'd be willing to tour as a supporting act, and I think he did so last year, but I wasn't interested in the artist he was supporting.)
I think the old-school thing was really meant to be just a single special show, and then expanded to a very small tour, and it was exciting for Denver to have a date added. It's very possible that this one is in fact the last tour, so I'm glad we got to go. (Or maybe there'll be another in a year or two!)

I'm actually less a fan of his older stuff than I am his like... middle stuff. I'm a 'Til Death fan, sorry. Even so, his older stuff has grown on me quite a bit.

He opened with "The Great Depression," which was a good starting song. Having the first words of a set be "Hey you motherfucking son of a bitch!" is pretty good, lol.

Got a lot of other faves from A Violent Emotion (and I'll be honest, while I knew most of the other songs, I don't have the albums they're on. I'll have to get them from Alex, as I'm sure he does, ha.) I was glad we got "Pale," which is one of my favorites from that album, as well as "The Siren" and "Living the Wasted Life."

The final encore song was "Spit It Out," which is a great energetic song to end on. I'm pretty sure that was the song he opened with at the first AP show we saw, way back at Castlemans (RIP a great venue.) The energy of the crowd screaming along with "Spit it out scream, spit it out scream!" does make it a great one to hear live.

Could have done without a small cohort of girls who came in about halfway through the set and pretty viciously shoved their way in front of me, but ah well.

Five more pictures

Bought Alex an Aesthetic Perfection shirt (since the last one he tried to get, he wound up with the wrong one and didn't realize until later. The cut of the one he got didn't work for him, so I wound up with it.)
I bought a Whorticulture shirt, since there's not an album to buy, haha. (Forever sad to have missed out on their "Goth as Fuck" shirts, which were styled to look like the "Queer as Folk" logo.)

Siamés is an Argentinian band known mostly for one pretty rad animated music video that got very popular several years ago:



After seeing that video, I bought the album, absolutely loved it, and continued to love most of what they've put out. (Including quite a few more very cool animated videos.) So it was very cool to get to see them live! They have been to the US to tour before, but not Denver.


Siamés!
(Sadly probably the best picture of them I really wound up with, heh. Annoyingly, my phone camera was being severely laggy, more so than I've ever had issues with before. I'm afraid the phone is on the way out...)

Taylor also loves them, so it was great that we got to go. The last concert we went to was... Silversun Pickups in February of 2020, right before everything shut down, ha.

We did take a rideshare down to the venue, because parking was so frustrating when Alex and I were there a few weeks ago. We got there about twenty-five minutes before doors, and it was VERY COLD to stand outside, but at least it wasn't snowing.


The tour poster in the window of the venue. (Sidenote - my friend from Voicecoil is performing as his other project, Gravity Corps, at Saturnalia tonight.)

We figured if we were going to be standing around waiting anyway, we might as well wait in the merch line. Semi good thing... Taylor and I got the last two (or damn close to it) Denver tour posters. :D (There are different posters for each stop on the tour... and somehow they were nearly sold out of Denver ones already!)
I bought Taylor the poster and a tour shirt as an Xmas gift, since they'd been struggling to come up with an idea for what they wanted.


(Crummy screenshot from a promo video, because that's the ONLY image I found of the poster, and mine is rolled up in a tube for safety at the moment.)

After buying our stuff, we headed back to the floor to hang out near the stage.

( Continued below the cut: )

Catching up on Snowflake...



Challenge #10: Rec a fanwork you did not create.

My first thought was this animatic, maybe because I first saw it via a rec here on Dreamwidth.

It's an animatic for The Murderbot Diaries. There are vague spoilers up through Network Effect, and a slight warning for blood and some body-horror (though it's pretty minor.)



I'd never heard the song ("I'm Not Your Hero" by Tegan and Sara) prior to this, but it's tied very well to the overarching plot and character arc for Murderbot; its struggle with whether its a person or not, and what kind of person it might be, and how it relates (and doesn't, and grows to) with the people around it.

The video probably doesn't make a LOT of sense if you haven't read the books, since it mostly focuses on specific plot points. At the same time, I think that even not knowing the books, you can trace the character arc that the video is portraying.

But really, I do highly recommend the series (The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, currently at five novellas and one novel.) If you haven't read them, you should! And the novel Network Effect and the series as a whole both won Hugo awards in 2021 for best novel and series, respectively.

Challenge #11 is to "interact with someone", which is a think I've been doing a lot of via commenting in journals and communities, ha.