Pavement
Central Park
Wednesday, September 22

Well, if nothing else, last night's lightning-delayed, rain-soaked Pavement convocation in Central Park (only two more to go!) was a great opportunity for Stephen Malkmus to say a bunch of ridiculous, borderline offensive stuff about the weather. Upon taking the stage, the wind picking up, what will turn out to be a downpour just minutes away: "Is it gonna rain? Do people, like, know that? They just know that I guess. They say they can smell it." Upon (temporarily) stopping the show, lightning flashing everywhere, rain pouring down: "Uh, lightning break. We gotta stop. She'll tell you [points to Parks Department functionary]. But I'm, uh, confirming, it's just a break." And of course, the best one, after the Doppler radar ("Doppler radar? That's not indie," someone shouts) has given us the all clear, rain still coming in waves but the lightning now more or less gone, Pavement striding back onstage to the ragged but swelling roar of the crowd: "Thank you guys...for nothing, really. It was just rain."

So many umbrellas.

TV on the Radio/Dirty Projectors
Central Park SummerStage
Friday, June 5

For a band that not too long ago had way better ideas than songs, way better better studio noises than hooks, TV on the Radio, long a critical favorite on record, grew up to be pretty fantastic live, no? Even in incredibly lousy circumstances, like, say, a rain-befouled Central Park gig, everyone mercilessly pelted and soaked to the bone and cowering beneath their giant umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-ehs, yielding no emotional reaction to an opening Dirty Projectors set plagued by erratic sound. (More on them later.) But now everyone's pogoing along to the stupendously aggressive "Wolf Like Me," chipping in unsolicited on the falsetto wails that frame the anthemically eerie "Staring at the Sun," thrilling to the Antibalas-derived horn section that blurts and blares through tunes old ("The Wrong Way") and new ("Crying"). That the rain finally ceases an hour or so in feels like deference, like a reward, theirs as much as ours.