No Age Booed Off Stage Opening for Cold War Kids

BY Josiah HughesPublished Mar 25, 2011

No Age have not hid their love of warm ambience. Across all the duo's releases, their blissful art punk is countered by their noisy interludes. With that in mind, it's no surprise that they might want to try out an ambient set after years of playing a more straight-up rock set. Unfortunately, fans of indie rockers Cold War Kids were not pleased when No Age decided to do this at a recent show in New York City.

According to some reports compiled on The Daily Swarm, No Age took the stage at NYC's Terminal 5 to open for Cold War Kids (who failed to impress us with their MOR rock standards during their recent Toronto show) and decided to stick only to ambient tracks for their entire time slot. The result was reportedly a barrage of boos from the crowd. One attendee who had flown in to witness the event from Minnesota had some particularly harsh words, which No Age attained and posted on their blog.

Here's the letter, posted in full:

I have been excited to see Cold War Kids perform for some time now and have been even more so stoked pumped for tonights show originally slated for Radio City Music Hall. I was a little disappointed to hear the venue change announced last minute, but felt "oh well, what the hell" good band, good times, it'd be nice to fly in from Minnesota and see a show at a Historic venue, but I guess its just as cool to explore more of NYC. Well as it clearly turns out the reason the show was moved was likely because the 2nd opening act, your boys No Age, seem to have no talent. While I may seem to be some one-off wanna be music critic I will have you know I never thought I'd see myself typing up a review for a show. Not to mention writing one up hours after because I felt so disgusted and ripped off that I paid decent money to have my ears bleed while your two hipsters get the bronx cheer every time they changed songs. Never have I been this motivated to whine about how shitty an opening band was. In fact, I have NEVER seen an opener get quarters, pennies, tickets and plastic cups thrown at them then actually get booed off stage when their set was done. What was originally a Bronx cheer ended up turning into angry boos and jeers from a crowd that paid good money to see a great band (and what was expected to be half decent openers, though Baths did fine) only to find out the show would change venus and in anticipation for the overall shittiness of the second opener (No Age) we'd get $10 back.

All I can say is that we deserved at least double that in refund or at least drinks on the house to make that godawful attempt at musical entertainment bearable to listen to. As much as you might hop to dismiss this as a random rant from some a$$, I want to stress that I like every type of music and am willing to give everything and everyone a chance. Whatever the hell they were trying to do was NOT music, their "performance" is simply an annoyance that likely damages anyones ears who listens to it. And apparently the only reason why they got this gig is for the silly Obama T-Shirt stunt and subsequent Radiohead love fest, or being from LA. Either way this was total trash, I'm angry I wasted $100 dollars on 2 tickets to see a show I originally thought to see at Radio City, $300 on a plan ticket and invited a friend who flew all the way from Sweden to see this show for his birthday. This was disgusting and held nothing in comparison to the live Karaoke I witnessed on just the night before at Prohibition in the Upper West Side. You each should feel slightly guilty for calling yourselves a Band, promoters, marketers and salespeople for a sham like this.

I bid you good night and hope no one is ever subject to this type of abuse ever again.

Sincerely,

~ Zach Schwartz
Minneapolis, MN


No Age went as far as including Zach's phone number and email address, but we'll give the poor guy a break and leave it off here.


 No Age released Everything in Between last year on Sub Pop.

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