I read a terrible review of a Modest Mouse show in Melbourne, Australia last week, which isn’t even worth linking . It drives me crazy when people writing reviews for publication make comments like a band is inexplicably touring despite not having any new material to push. Anyone doing even cursory research on Modest Mouse would see that they tour a lot. They tour every year, in fact, despite their last real album having come out in 2007, with a collection of b-sides in 2009. That is their pattern and you shouldn’t question an American band at their level wanting to tour in Australia even without new material to promote.
The writer also noted that Isaac Brock was cantankerous. No shit, that is kind of Isaac’s thing. You either love him or you hate him for it. I personally love that he will not take shit from anyone.
But the thing that disturbed me the most about reading the review is finding out that, for the first time since the classic The Lonesome Crowded West was released in 1997, Modest Mouse played “Heart Cooks Brain”. Not that they played it and I wasn’t there, although that is distressing in itself. But the fact that Isaac told the audience they had never played it before and no one thought to pull out their smartphones and record it. It’s an epic moment of a great band playing a great song for the first time since it was recorded 14 years earlier. I have checked YouTube every day since the show, hoping someone would upload it, with no luck. Epic social media fail. What did they record instead? Fucking Float On, which I personally would love to see Modest Mouse retire from the setlist, despite it being the band’s biggest hit. Let it sell cars or phones and make you money because you deserve that, but leave it off the setlists.
Heart Cooks Brain has a line, “My heart’s the bitter buffalo.” Isaac Brock has a tattoo of a buffalo, which is an iconic Modest Mouse t-shirt design, on the left side of his chest.
I am still shaking my head that no one had the presence of mind to realize what a significant moment in the history of this band that they were witnessing. Yes, I am a Modest Mouse geek but any big fan should have known what a big deal the performance of that song was.
Here’s the song, as recorded in 1997, from YouTube.
Well, those dingos may suck. Or they could be like me and as much as I may want to get some video at a show, it distracts from my rocking. Therefore if something like this were to happen while I was in attendance, it would actually be a disservice for me to be documenting it.
This is true, but I want to seeeee it. That should be all that matters to anyone.