Take-Away Shows


Top 10 reasons why I love Take-Away Shows from La Blogothèque:

1. Unexpected
2. Fun
3. Spontaneous
4. Honest
5. Genuine
6. Fairly unknown
7. A look all their own
8. Bite-size
9. Distributable
10. French, but yet global

I got hooked on La Blogothèque in sometime in early 2007 when I saw The Shins give everyone "an hour of pure and simple enjoyment", and I can't believe it has taken me this long to write about it. Here's a snippet from the Bloc Party show above:

We cut, during the editing, because it took us 25 minutes to talk them into doing it. Just enought time to stop him from running away, go get Russel, decide what song they were going to play. When Kele eventually started singing, Colin was pressed against him, and it felt like he was jumping from a diving-board too high for him... He caught us off-guard. Everyone was speechless. There’s nothing more to add. Five minutes of rare sincerity, two artists doing something with no safety net and without really understanding why. They took that risk, and that’s what we thank them for.

In addition to Bloc Party and The Shins, other not-to-be-missed Take-Away Shows include Beirut (plus 12 videos for The Flying Club Cup), José Gonzaléz (Storm is incredible!), The National, and Arcade Fire who do Neon Bible in an elevator.

Gives me goosebumps ...