Chopstork

Went to the Download Festival at Shoreline this weekend. It was alright. Rocked out to Coheed and Cambria on the second stage. Never heard Muse before, but they were pretty good. That was my overall impression of the show—just pretty good. We lay in the grass watching the bands on the screens the whole time.

Until Beck played. I wasn’t particularly excited about Beck playing before the show, but his set was ingenious. They had look-alike puppets performing the entire concert on a replica stage. We’re not talking stuffed band members bobbing up and down to the music. These puppets had all the details down. They were moving their mouths in sync to the music. They were strumming their guitars realistically. They were scratching the tiny turntables. The puppet token-dancing-guy was getting his groove on as he shook the tambourine. The puppet drummer was hitting his puppet high hats. And the puppet stage even had a miniature puppet stage on it.

For a couple songs four or five band members sat around a kitchen table and played only cups, plates, utensils, wine glasses, the table, salt shakers, etc. And of course the puppets all sat around a miniature kitchen table and played the dishes too. Mesmerizing.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera on me (shocking, I know). Oh look, here’s a clip on YouTube…how convenient. Though in this clip the music is recorded for most of it and only the puppets are live (they use Loser as their entrance theme).

That first part was the puppet mini-movie before the encore that features the area they’re playing that night. Couldn’t find the Shoreline episode, but here’s another one from Yahoo! the night before.