Finally after 18 months I got to see Negativland perform in Seattle. It was a small show at a venue with a < 100 person capacity. I’d guess about 80
people were there. Mask compliance was surprisingly high, and vaccine cards were checked at the door. I got there early to get a spot right at the stage.
The touring group is Mark Hosler, Wobbly (Jon Leidecker), and visual artist SUE-C. The Weatherman appeared from his nearby Seattle home over FaceTime during the encore to do his Weatherman thing.
Opener Blevin Blectum performed for about 30 minutes, then Negativland went for about 90 minutes. It was a tight, well put together, visually spectacular show all around. There was a dizzying array of kit that Mark, Jon, and SUE-C were working with through the show to create an experience.
Despite being a decades long fan and owning many of the releases I found myself being unfamiliar with most of the material beyond recognizing samples and motifs at times. After the show I briefly talked to Mark and asked if he had any sort of setlist for the show. He laughed at me! “Setlist? Ha!” He then explained that for this tour they basically know how they will start and end, will do Escape from Noise somewhere in the middle, and everything else is completely improvised including most of the visuals. I guess that’s what you get when you have a decades of combined experience putting on a show like this.
Here’s a few pictures I took:
ETA: The entire show is on YouTube (Negativland starts at 48:00 if you want to jump ahead):
ETA2: Here’s an article about the show from our local alternative newspaper. You can see the back of my head in one of the shots 
:
