When Oneida took the stage on Sunday morning at 2 a.m., a substantial percentage of the packed crowd at Market Hotel had already called it a night. The night’s festivities began at 9:30 p.m. and continued through a frenetic array of music, lights, and crowd buzz for nearly five hours before the headliners appeared. The core group of diehards were rewarded, as Oneida delivered a blistering and unwavering set of 75 minutes of their unique powerful neo-psychedelic punk. The highlights included the 14-minute trance-like version of “Snow Machine”, and the set-ending “Double Lock Your Mind” where Bobby and Kid traded several minutes of pounding crescendo beats and closed the set at nearly 3:30 a.m.
The Market Hotel presents a compelling and interesting new approach to live music. While the location is actually a home and developmental space for 8 artists, on weekends it becomes a private party of music managed by the ubiquitous Brooklyn promoter ToddP. While an early event caused a minor legal problem, it appears that the artists and the promoter have ironed out the system and have created a space with a buzz, a great vibe, and some terrific energetic young bands. We saw absolutely no violations of the kind which brought about the legal issues, as attendees appeared to be respecting the space and the rules.
There are two unfortunate aspects of the venue that need to be reassessed. Since the concerts are technically part of a private party, the space permits smoking but does not provide much ventilation. A vast number of people took advantage and chain-smoked throughout the night. The result was an aesthetically unpleasant cloud of cigarette smoke, which was unfortunately a health risk for asthmatics like us. Frankly, we are not going to be able to return to this venue after the breathing problems we encountered as a result. We would hope that the venue would create a smoke free environment, or limit smoking to the outer rooms.
The other problem for the Market is its rather primitive sound system. There were a ton of technical problems throughout the night, particularly with saturation and distortion in vocal microphones. The hard-working sound tech solved most of the problems, but you can hear some of that vocal distortion in this recording. Fortunately, we were able to set up at an excellent location in front of the stacks, and capture an excellent recording albeit within the limitations of the system — some minor distortion, buzz, and feedback are evident throughout. Enjoy!
Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].
Oneida
2008-03-22
Market Hotel
Brooklyn NY USA
Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded from Approximately
30 feet in front of Right PA Stacks
Neumann KM-150 (AK-50 Hypercardiods) > Monster Cable > Apogee Mini-Me > Digital Coaxial > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 16bit 44.1 kHz wav > Soundforge (set fades, level adjustment) > CD Wave > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac
Thanks Oneida (via Bobby) for permission to record!
Recorded and Produced by nyctaper
2008-03-23
Setlist:
[total time 1:13:47]
01 Up With People
02 Ghost in the Room
03 Snow Machine
04 Life You Preferred
05 The River
06 I Will Haunt You
07 History’s Great Navigators
08 Puff Puff
09 Let it Rain
10 Double Lock Your Mind
If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Oneida, visit their webpage, and purchase their official releases directly from the label that they operate, Brah Records.
There is a brief review of this concert and some photos here:
http://lessavyfav15.blogspot.com/2008/03/sheets-of-easter.html