Live: Mission Of Burma, Fucked Up! & Ponytail @ Brooklyn Waterfront 7.12.9

If Brooklyn is good for one thing in the Summertime, it's the free shows. The McCarren pool shows were always a good time, although much the SummerStage benefit shows, the pay shows were way too over-priced to see Ween or Wilco in 2009. JellyNYC has taken the reins for the pool parties that aren't and kicked off a series of pretty decent shows on the East River on Sunday afternoons.

I rolled over in the late afternoon, unfortunately in time to see the end of the Ponytail set. I am rapidly losing faith in the young people and their taste in music. Luckily, while most of the stuff is twice as crappy, it's three times as disposable, making for easy forgetting of the ear-rape that takes place when you have to listen to/watch them. Same old story, no bass, two guitars, sequencing, impish frontwoman of ambiguous sexual orientation/ethnicity, lots of 80s references. Not a fan. Please make it stop.

As the universe works in strange and mysterious ways, Fucked Up! were batting in the middle slot. Cue the reason for my trip across the water. The gents (and lady) were fresh from a Serbian Festival (where the headlined with Korn -- no shit!) and set to removing the specter of retro synth-pop in short order. Pink Eyes was stripped to his boxers and in the crowd by the second song, talking shit and talking about his kid. And there was much rejoicing. Got some quality real estate on the wall next to the stage and had a blast. Man, do Fucked Up! bring it. Was nice to see Lucien of Fiasco taking in the proceedings, too. Hope the acoustic show went smooth.

So even more bizarrely, Mission Of Burma closed the afternoon's proceedings. No Swopes, and I've yet to ascertain whether Bob Weston was doing loops and such, but they were still pretty great. Their set was coincident with my finally hooking up with The Brothers Johnson (not these guys) and their lovely friend Heatherrr. You can't do much better than Burma and the Bros. Prescott still has the most beautiful bass ever and Manning still looks silly with the ear protection, but Burma still have it. I would have preferred to enjoy them in the warm Summer twilight, but it was still a hell of a nice day. Brooklyn people (that aren't EJ) are still very silly though.

R