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As Halloween looms, a look back at some frightful moments in music
Never mind Halloween, brushes with Kid Rock, Justin Bieber, Tupac Shakur, the Beach Boys, Carrie Underwood and the Divine Fits are enough to give us the chills. Here are the most chilling moments of 2012 according to our Pop & Hiss team.
Terror on the high seas
When a Bieber calls
Beats from beyond the grave
Stage fright
(Almost) buried alive
Tombstones and Tom Petty
Terror on the high seas
Name something scarier than coasting from Miami to the Bahamas for four nights with 2,650 of Kid Rock’s biggest booze-guzzling fans. During the rocker’s annual “Chillin’ the Most” cruise I wandered the 12 decks of the nearly 900-foot-long ship as Rock fans in various stages of undress toted giant inflatable penises, downed his own Badass American Lager (a nightmare in a can) out of breast-shaped beer bongs and consumed more than three times the amount of alcohol than a typical Carnival cruise. Sure there was music with Kid Rock, Eminem protégé Yelawolf, and a drunken, stumbling Uncle Kracker, but all I could focus on were the amount of male and female body parts being flashed at me at all times. My last image? A topless woman in her mid-40s passing around a Sharpie as a group of guys lined up at the bar to scribble their names across her chest — and that’s one of the printable moments. The horror. — Gerrick D. Kennedy
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Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times |
When a Bieber calls
At first the voice outside my window was sweet and beckoning; its melody lithe and minor-key. It was Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend,” and it was on a loop coming from somewhere outside my apartment window in downtown L.A. I got up to investigate — the throng of dancers and expensive automobiles assembled at a parking garage across the street suggested that Bieber was shooting a video for the song. I made coffee. Still more rounds of “Boyfriend.” I began pacing the living room. The inescapable song was becoming a sinister mockery, a serpentine trail of adolescent sex drive seeping in through shut windows, closed doors and solid walls. It was “Rear Window” with flowing bangs. The song then felt as if it were coming from inside my house; nay, from inside the tortured crevasses of my own mind. “What do you want from me, Bieber?” I yelled into the bass-pulsing abyss below. Like death itself, Bieber did not answer. I turned off my laptop and went to the bar. — August Brown
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Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times |
Beats from beyond the grave
It’s not often a dead guy steals the show, but that’s what happened at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival when hip-hop forebear Tupac Shakur appeared to rise from the stage to greet Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and the audience with a hail of profanity. Alas, local concert promoter Goldenvoice may be able to facilitate reunions among bands like Rage Against the Machine and the Pixies for its festivals, but the company can’t bring harmony to the Smiths and it can’t resurrect the deceased. The hologram-like image — actually a fancy projection — was a technological innovation and not a miracle. But the specter served its purpose: Fans left Coachella asking, “How did they do that?” rather than, “When is Dr. Dre releasing ‘Detox’”? — Todd Martens
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Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times |
Stage fright
There was plenty to be horrified by during the Beach Boys’ supremely shaky performance with Maroon 5 and Foster the People at February’s Grammy Awards. Take Mark Foster’s lead vocal in “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” for instance. (No, please — take it!) But perhaps nothing will stick with us longer than the various facial expressions captured by the CBS cameras: Mike Love sneering like a predatory grandpa, Brian Wilson beaming regret through a scrim of pride and, of course, poor little Foster staring out at the folks at home with a look of unalloyed terror. Good vibrations? Not from where we sat. — Mikael Wood
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Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times |
(Almost) buried alive
Partway through country singer Carrie Underwood’s current “Blown Away” tour stop at the Staples Center, a section of the main stage was hoisted skyward on cables with Underwood and three members of her touring band on board. Those seated on the floor — fans, other reviewing journalists and myself — were smack under the flight path of the whole set. As at least a half-ton of stage and musicians cruised directly above me, all I could think was, “Please, God, if I’m going to die in the line of duty, don’t let it be during a show by anyone who owes their career to ‘American Idol.’” — Randy Lewis
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Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times |
Tombstones and Tom Petty
Tucked amid the headstones of movie royalty at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a Masonic Temple, and few places feel more intimate on evenings when the cavernous second-floor room is opened for concerts. In the moments before the band Divine Fits gigged there in August, a haze floated among the gravestones as fans parked their cars along the roads that thread the cemetery and walked toward the building. Led by Spoon’s Brit Daniel and Dan Boeckner (formerly of Wolf Parade), the Fits aren’t particularly spooky in and of themselves. But when they did a slow, crawling version of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “You Got Lucky,” a chill filled the air around the Temple. And as Daniel sang the opening lines: “You better watch what you say/You better watch what you do to me,” the menace felt real. — Randall Roberts
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Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times |
