This post is from Out the Other's 2009 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.
My taste in music has changed a lot over the course of the last ten years - sure, there are the classic rock bands that I will love forever, and the teenage years-shaping acts like Toad the Wet Sprocket that will always be close to my heart because they were the first that I claimed as my own personal favorites. But when I stop to think about it, there are very few bands that I was listening to obsessively at the end of high school and the beginning of college that I still love just as much now. And Gomez is one of those bands.
Gomez was one of the first bands that I really felt I "discovered" - I caught their video for "Get Myself Arrested" on MTV2 one night in high school while babysitting and fell a little in love. I think they were one of my first internet downloads too - I picked that song up on Napster, along with a few other songs off of their Mercury Prize-winning debut Bring It On. And the English band was definitely one of my biggest firsts - during the first month of my freshman year in Boston, they were the first concert I ever attended alone.
I can still remember that concert as vividly as if it were yesterday - slightly nervous and unable to drink, I kind of floated around the edges of the Paradise before the band took the stage. But once they did, it was suddenly as if everyone in the room had chugged three vodka redbulls and was friendly and giddy and completely ready to dance. There have been very few occasions since that I've seen the energy of that show matched, and most of them have been Gomez shows. Their set at ACL a few years back comes to mind, along with a comfortably cramped show at 3rd and Lindsley where they completely tore it up. Gomez shines on the stage, and I was thrilled to see they'd be playing Bonnaroo this year.
After 1998's Bring It On, Gomez went on to release two of my all-time favorite records, Liquid Skin and In Our Gun. For me, the more recent releases lack the psychedelic groove and dark punch of the band's first three albums, but even though I don't love their recorded material as much as I used to, it's been exciting to see the band grow in popularity, and the live shows still have the ability to make me fall in love with the songs that didn't quite click after hearing the record. And after ten years of loving a band, that's more than I could ask.
"Airstream Driver"
"Ping One Down"
Gomez will play twice on Friday at Bonnaroo - on the Which Stage from 12:30-1:45 p.m. and on the Sonic Stage from 3:15-3:45 p.m. Check out the Full Bonnaroo schedule on the official Bonnaroo website.
