Not just a bagpipe
4 Frifot brings Swedish acoustic music to the Ark. Per
Gudmundson, Ale Moller and Lena Willemark use traditional
instruments to create a modern sound. 8 p.m.
Monday
8A September 13, x.999
MIX Sitiu aftg
Tomorrow in Daily Arts:
* Breaking Records returns, featuring reviews of new
releases by Splendor, Jon Spencer and Megadeth.
./
Harpo' s
hosted
By Adlin Rosli
Daily Arts Writer
Metal is one of earth's most precious natural
resources. This past Saturday night, Harpo's was
host to a diverse showcase of various incarnations
of Metal. Monstrosity was there to represent
Death Metal, Dimmu Borgir was there to represent
Black Metal and headliner
Samael was there to represent
its own brand of techno dri-
ven, neo-industrial Metal.
Samael Despite the difference in
musical styles offered by each
Harpo's group, there was one affinity
Sept. 11, 1999 amongst them all: Love for
Satan.
With a enormous penta-
gram emblazoned banner
hanging at the back of the
stage, Monstrosity and
Dimmu Borgir respectively
performed their sets.
Monstrosity, whose set was an
intense pummeling session, blasted through num-
bers from its several releases.
What a glorious sight - the band in all its long
haired, head-banging and "guitarist-in-extreme-
pain" glory - bringing back so warm and fuzzy
memories of the hey days of MTV's now defunct
"Headbanger's Ball."
Dimmu Borgir followed suit with its perfor-
mance. The group now driven by its new drummer,
former Cradle Of Filth sticks-man Nicholas Baker,
played respectably.
Unlike Monstrosity, however, Dimmu Borgir
had more of a visual advantage as its members
wore corpse-like facial make up. After all, they are
a Black Metal band and aside from a shrieking
lead singer, another staple of the genre is corpse-
like facial make up.
Many "Hail Satan!" and devil hand signs later,
Pseudo-comedy,
really'Stinks'
By Josh Pederson
Daily Arts Writer
A film's opening numbers are often
over-used and over-analyzed statistics
when concerning any given film's qual-
itv. Oftentimes. incredible movies will
open to small crowds, while with the
help of today's advertising machine,
cinematic disasters will garner record-
setting numbers in their first days.
These stats, however, can sometimes be
right on target.
"Love Stinks," a pseudo-romantic
pseudo-comedy, opened this past week-
end with the 200-
seat auditorium
c o m p 1 e t e l y
empty. After
Love numerous trivia
Stinks questions, count-
less Disney-relat-
ed anagrams, and
At Briarwood piped-in hits by
and Showcase Gloria Estefan,
INXS and the
Backstreet Boys,
twice, the projec-
tor began rolling
to a still empty
auditorium.
Any normal human being would
have taken his cue to leave at this point,
because frankly, 199 empty seats don't
lie. Expecting tripe at best, the film did-
n't disappointed.
To get the obvious play on words out
of the way early, "Love Stinks," well,
um, it stinks. There. It's been said. Yes,
it turns out that there was a very good
reason that no one was at this particular
showing of "Love Stinks." It is simply a
movie that is not worth watching, and it
appears that most people knew that
already.
"Love Stinks" stars French Stewart
as a hapless bachelor with a horrible
fear of commitment and a beautiful but
marriage-hungry girlfriend, played by
Bridgette Wilson. Bill Bellamy and
Tvra Banks costar as a happily married
couple playing foil to the former's
debacle of a relationship.
The film's concept isn't a horrible
one. It has potential to a great iuv
movie: Hlappy bachelor slowly
descends to marriage under the strain of
his commitment-happy girlfriend's co
niving schemes. It could be a funny
movie, because the plot does leave
room for a fair amount of comedy.
But the movie doesn't take advan-
tage of its premise. The dialogue just
isn't all that humorous. The few mild-
lv funny scenes were already wasted
before the opening credits rolled,
made tired and trite by the film's tele-
vision trailers In addition, Stewart,
who plays a delightfully anv alien
NBC's "Third Rock from the Sun,
gives a tired and forced performance,
squandering any star power that he
might have lent to this fiasco of a
film.
"Love Stinks"'s other option would
be to forego straight-shooting humor,
choosing instead to make its audience
squirm with uncomfortable situation
after uncomfortable situation, a Ia Jim
Carrey's "The Cable Guy." But it's
really not all that awkward, either. TI-
film pulls its punches, and ends up a
weak attempt at best.
Therefore, with mediocre acting, a
tired script, little comedy, and a low
level of viewer discomfort, "Love
Stinks" is just really boring. It's
Hollywood's equivalent to dry white
toast. Or Yanni's two-CD greatest hits
album. Or a TV timeout at a Michitan
game.
Fortunately this reviewer was alo
at "Love Stinks." Therefore, I was
able to utilize the empty aisles in'
assuaging my boredom. After numer-
ous cartwheels, a thorough calis-
thenic workout, and three games of
solitaire, I finally got to the closing
credits with a minimum of pain. So,
if any feels a need to actually sit
through "Love Stinks," bring a deck
of cards and some workout clothes,
okay? You'll be the only one there.
Courtesy of Century Media
Samael brought its original style of metal to Harpo's Saturday night.
Dimmu Borgir wrapped up their performance and
it was headliner Samael's turn to perform. With
the stage fogged up by smoke, stirring lights from
the stage and a pre-recorded Discovery Channel-
like monologue on reality playing in the back-
ground, concert attendees had an odd feeling sim-
ilar to being at some sort of planetarium rather
than a concert.
Two topless male dancers wielding flaming
torches took to the stage with all sorts of occult
symbols drawn on their bodies. Could troupe
members of Cirque du Soleil have gotten lost and
accidentally wandered into larpo's?
With the crashing of preprogrammed drum
beats, members of Samael finally appeared and
began their set. The group's music is an odd mish-
mash of industrial mayhem and simplified Death
Metal.
The group's drummer alternated between man-
ning the drum machine, samplers and his drum kit
throughout the show Complementing the eerie
sonic offerings were a host of equally stimulating
bits of eve candy. Aside from the aforementioned
dancers, there was more smoke andcolored lights
keeping the atmosphere in the venue dark and con-
fusing.
It was, unfortunate then that the group's ability
to draw a crowd, combined with that of the other
two bands, was severely overestimated. Perhaps
only 50 souls ventured to Harpo's this past
Saturday. although the venue holds approximately
2,000. The show would probably have been better
suited to The Shelter, or another smaller location.
Although Metal may be one of earth's most pre-
cious commodities, it was painfully obvious this
past Saturday that Monstrosity, Dimmu Borgir
and Samael's brand of Metal was not much in
demand.
Springsteen, E Street rocked Palace
By Ryan Malkin
Daily Arts Writer
From the moment the first chord
of Bruce Springsteen's Telecaster
guitar was strummed, the audience
was "Trapped." The Boss rocked the
Palace of Auburn Hills last Thursday
Bruce;
Springsteen
The Palace
Sept. 9, 1999
night, accompa-
nied by the E
Street Band, for
the first time
since their 1989
break-up.
Springsteen
and the band
were back in
perfect form and
even better than
before: After all,
they've had time
to grow as musi-
cians and peo-
ple.
slowest song of the night.
Once Springsteen's heart rate
returned to a normal pace, he
removed his vest and button-down
and was ready to rock.
The audience couldn't have been
more ready to sing along to
"Darlington County," "Badlands,"
and "Murder Inc."
Springsteen preached the "min-
istry of rock 'n' roll" and the audi-
ence followed him down the river as
if he knew the way to the fountain of
youth.
During "10th Avenue Freeze Out,"
he introduced the band, and he broke
into "My Girl" and "Red Headed
Women" when introducing his wife
and fellow band member, Patti
Scialfa.
After "The Ghost of Tom Joad,"
the audience was sent "Racing in
the Streets" and onto the
"Backstreets" before the most pow-
erful performance of the night:
"Born to Run."
The house lights went up and the
audience, in unison, screamed,
"Tramps like us, baby we were born
to run.
After lifting the audience to an
Imotional high, Springsteen gently
let the crowd back down and left the
stage, only to return with a harmoni-
ca in hand.
As soon as the first note was
blown from his harmonica, the audi-
ence knew what classic was about to
unfold: "Thunder Road."
Emotions and excitement began
to soar once again and Springsteen
capitalized on this moment, bring-
ing the audience into another
dimension with "If I Should Fall
Behind." Each singing member of
the E Street Band sang a portion of
Springsteen, more than any other
performer, always holds the audience
in the palm of his hand from begin-
ning to end. He busted out hit after
hit and sent the audience running to
the bathrooms and to the concessions
only during "Working Life," the
Courtesy of Sony
The Boss brought all of his greatest hits to the Palace last Thursday.
__ _
IF your plans For
A PR I L includeI
the M
2000 SCHEDULES
ARP I-FRFI
the song. Springsteen, Clarence
Clemons, Steve Van Zandt, Patti
Scialfa, Gary Tallant and Nils
Lofgren huddled together and sang
the final chorus: "If I should fall
behind wait for me, 'cause I'll wait
for you."
Springsteen and the E Street Band
left the stage once again, only to
return to play "Land of Hope and
Dreams."
The Boss then asked, "What time
is it? It's too early to stop now, no
one's going to work tomorrow."
Meanwhile, this was after three
hours of non-stop playing; the length
of the show was simply unbelievable.
This music "Factory" is going to
continue to roll across the rest of t
country and bring a little sprit, soul
and rock 'n' roll into the lives of
every man, woman or child in the
audience.
On Sept. 9; Springsteen and the E
Street Band truly "Proved it All
Night."
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STUDY & RESEARCH ABROAD
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