Having seen Menomena a half dozen times or so now I can’t disagree with you more. They are tight and do a great job of translating what they do on their records to a live environment. Both of the shows you mention were big to-do’s at outdoor venues with limited sound check time allotted. The Bumpershoot performance was great because of the choir, but the sound was still a bit off. At the Block Party the sound was terrible for the first half of the set but improved to mediocre by the end. Given my experience from the rest of the Block Party, I lay that fault solely on the sound engineer and not Menomena.
As to rather or not they have arenas in their future, who knows. I wouldn’t have thought Modest Mouse of The Shins would be playing arenas and large theatres five years ago but look where we are now.
Reviews
Tim Hanken said on August 4, 2008:
Having seen Menomena a half dozen times or so now I can’t disagree with you more. They are tight and do a great job of translating what they do on their records to a live environment. Both of the shows you mention were big to-do’s at outdoor venues with limited sound check time allotted. The Bumpershoot performance was great because of the choir, but the sound was still a bit off. At the Block Party the sound was terrible for the first half of the set but improved to mediocre by the end. Given my experience from the rest of the Block Party, I lay that fault solely on the sound engineer and not Menomena.
As to rather or not they have arenas in their future, who knows. I wouldn’t have thought Modest Mouse of The Shins would be playing arenas and large theatres five years ago but look where we are now.