The Occupy movement rallied up thousands of people in New York (and in other cities) for a march on May Day. The event brought together different groups that had arrived at different midtown Manhattan locations including the Guitarmy in Bryant Park. Students were supposed to walk out of classes, consumers were asked not to shop and workers were told to gather and highlight the plight of the 99%.

In Union Square, before the groups marched on towards Zuccotti Park, there was a stage set up for performances and personalities. Tom Morello, Das Racist and Immortal Technique were among just a few of the names that were scheduled for the stage. But the south end of the park was packed with demonstrators and personalities. PopMatters was there to capture some of those crowd images.

Trishna is director Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, his third Hardy adaptation following Jude (1996) and The Claim (2000) (none of which I have read). This new movie stars Freida Pinto as Trishna, the lower class maiden and hired help, and Riz Ahmed as Jay, a privileged British chap who maintains his father’s hotels in the Indian state of Rajasthan.

Pinto and Ahmed carry most of the weight of the film, but there isn’t a whole lot of depth to their characters. Jay is more insipid than interesting and he is unaware of his major misdeed. He’s much more unaware or careless of his actions than he should be, though his wealthy background is the likely explanation. He does earn some respect for his willingness to handle family obligations and manage a hotel in some less trendy areas of India. However you feel towards him at the beginning, likely ambivalence, once you dislike him, nothing will change that view. He can’t branch out in enterprise so he instead satiates his libido.

The Lumineers are one of those up and coming bands that I was introduced to by KEXP’s John in the Morning and by the Next Music show podcast. The band hails from Denver but their rustic tones give them a sound from further south and they are currently on tour supporting their self-titled debut album. When the band came through Connecticut, they chose to perform at the intimate StageOne venue in Fairfield, which holds about 225 people seated on risers around the stage. It isn’t as cozy as The Space in Hamden, and not as grand as Ridgefield Playhouse, but the tiers make it so there is not a bad seat in the house. However, this did keep people from stomping and swaying along to the tunes.

It didn’t take more than ten seconds of listening to the first track on The Tel Aviv Session to agree with PopMatters’ reviewer David Maine’s high praise that “this is the best record you will hear this year”. So when I heard The Touré-Raichel Collective was coming to New York, I jumped at the chance to attend. The four member outfit came together when Idan Raichel (piano) crossed paths with Vieux Farka Touré (guitar) in an airport and suggested they collaborate. Skip ahead a few years and four musicians, including Yossi Fine (bass) and Souleymane Kane (percussion), got together for one “magical night”, as Raichel put it, in Tel Aviv for a recording session. The rich evocative music they created sounds so organic and natural that you might think the musicians had been playing together for years. In that studio, friends came and went, joining in on a few songs and adding to the homely atmosphere.

Act II of the ‘Cosmic Opera’ event covered two nights just like the first. But while Act I was called the Overture, Act II was dubbed Imbroglio as the promoters sought to bring out more “intensity, conflict, and charged emotion” in the performance. On the first night, a Thursday, ‘Cosmic Opera’ Act II succeeded in adding more glamour and theatrics with additional stages for frequent dancer appearances and a doubling down on costumes with people attired in either dark Mardi Gras theme apparel or in shimmery silver body suits with blonde wigs. These somewhat waylaid the main complaints that arose about Act I (with Axwell) where the theme was done weakly as PopMatters and others reported. There was little need to create a theme around the event with such a huge turnout for the DJ. I wouldn’t suggest Act II’s improvements were important, but it was nice to see they were trying.