[hipster_bebop_junkie]

That really sucks. It enrages me and disappoints me to see this kind of tactics. Reminds me of some feelings I had recently when I saw Lasse Marhaug and Paal Nilssen Love performing solo sets a few months ago at a church, and I heard unofficial words that they were asked not to crank it really loud and just limit their performances to 25 minutes. Paal Nilssen-Love did that, and Lasse Marhaug's set was actually way shorter than that. Both could have been louder, but they were great, nonetheless. In contrast to this situation, they played a collaborative set that same night at some other place, and within that context the whole thing was a lot better, and they seemed to enjoy that one the most (there was an encore, even). Days later, Peter Brötzmann casually mentioned during his solo set at Festival Aural in Mexico City, among other things, that they only gave him thirty minutes to perform.

That one time when they turned on the lights when Text Of Light was taking their improvisation to celestial heights at La Cineteca Nacional in a clear attempt to transmit a message to the band that it all should end already in detriment to the own artists' vision surely, is still very present in my mind. That gesture of confusion in Alan Licht's face, turning to Lee and Ulrich Krieger first, then to Tim Barnes and apparently not having a clear notion what was the path to follow until Lee approached him and whispered something in his ear, is something I will never forget. The show then ended a few minutes after that, leaving many people there wanting more, including the musicians, I would bet. That was yet another confirmation that we still have so much to learn and a lot of room for improvement here in the Third World. Seems like some people and organizations over there, which I had assumed would have better judgement as a result from more experience, are now aspiring to be really shitty. One would have thought there could be people involved in that, whom would understand the fair absolute truth that a show of whatever nature should run its natural course and reach it's due climax and conclusion. Still, thirty minutes of Lee Ranaldo are a lot better than many other things in the world, and such a short show will have plenty of awesomeness no matter what, although it is a bit painful to be expecting, let's say "Genetic" or "Karenology" for instance, as an encore, and going home empty-handed in that aspect so to speak (yet one more reference to another event which denoted our institutions' flaws).