80s electro legend Egyptian Lover opened, and was fantastic. He djed, rapped and generally killed it.

Low Budget (1/2 of Hollertronix along with Diplo) was M.I.A.s dj for the stop and he played for a little less than an hour. His set was lackluster, sloppy mixing and fairly boring track selection did little for me, though I never thought I would hear Baltimore Club on a huge soundsystem at Liberty hall so that was cool. He played Lawrence resident Dj B-Stee's remix of Daft Punks 'Robot Rock' and it was the highlite of his set.

M.I.A. took forever to come on. When she did her performance was not nearly as tight as I would have hoped for. Bringing everyone on and off of stage for Jimmy and Birdflu was a total clusterfuck and really killed the energy for me. She never brought the crowd to the crescendo you could tell it was wanting, but all in all, it was a fun show.

The afterparty at the Gaslight however was nothing less than MASSIVE.

Thanks for that!

Whoa, Egyptian Lover totally looks like Sike Style: http://www.myspace.com/therealegyptianlover

Wilco rocked it last night. Tweedy was in good spirits, giving freeloaders on top of a parking garage and houses behind the stage shit for not paying. Then he asked the live crowd if we felt ripped off for paying $30. Nope. Great night. They hit a lot of my favorites, especially "Shot in the Arm" and "Misunderstood."

Wilco was pretty outstanding, and the vibe was really nice for an outside show...not too crowded, comfortable to move around in, and people for the most part were really mellow...almost too mellow until the sun went down a few songs into the Wilco set.

The guys look really refreshed these days, not pulling 3 month long tours anymore and generally making a pretty healthy living doing festivals and small regional excursions. Seeing Tweedy jumping around, smiling and joking about Columbia being a better town for boob-showing made the memory of a pale, dead-eyed zombie version of Tweedy playing at the Beaumont Club a few years back, trudging through a show with as little visible joy as possible for earning his paycheck.

Upsetting points of the show:
1. No "Muzzle of Bees", aka "Nels Cline transcends space and time to make the most insane joyful guitar noise that has ever existed on the planet".

Amazing moments of the show:
1. There were a lot, but taking "Hoodoo Voodoo" into a Sansone/Cline guitar duel was an incredibly bright moment that left me wanting more more MORE guitar solos. That never happens.
2. Glenn Kotche transforming into a horse.

MIA really brings something different and the crowd anticipated that. Lawrence and Kansas City is desperate for good - really good- dance music. Despite the technical shortfallings of her performance, she managed to turn attendees into die hard fans. Concerts are all about experience and this massive dance party ranked super high. Her style is much needed to genuinely zap some life into the blase surface-music industry. She is starting to inch closer to mainstream prescence. I understand MIA is an artist and I will wait however long it takes for her to get up the gumption to lip synch those songs to me! She is a fantastic stereotype-thwarting musician.
Can't wait for her next show.

The Optimum MIA experience: I would love to catch her and her crew in a decrepit reagae bar in Jamaca performing on a Monday night. Small venue, big sub woofers, hot & sweaty, with insects, some rough edges, and some sick, sick beats.

I hope next time you descend onto the area, kids will be well versed in the issues you rhyme about. And we can continue the conversation after the show.
Keep up the good fight MIA!