Concert wrap-up
I have been to several concerts lately:
Kings of Convenience played at the beginning of the month. This show was GREAT. The opener was Feist, and this was her first show in the States (she’s from Canada by way of Europe). She had interesting lyrics and was doing the vocals-and-electric-guitar-with-tape-loops-sometimes thing. While I much preferred Howie Day’s use of tape loops, I liked Feist’s singing quite a bit and her bare bones sound was really good. Then the Kings themselves came on and kicked some ass, in their sweetly melodic way. I stuck around after the show and got them to sign my poster. I asked Erlend for his pick but he said he needed it and gave me a puzzled look. shrugs Oh, well. :-)
We Are Scientists played on Tuesday. THAT was a cool set. They’re really nice guys. I only got the chance to hang out with them a little bit because the band they were renting a van with wanted to leave. They said they’d be back in town soon, though. Two interesting tidbits: they signed to Virgin on Monday and they’re licensing their entire back catalog (they have a new album coming out) to Sony music to use for an Avril Lavigne-type chick Sony wants to manufacture.
I don’t know how I feel about that, but I certainly wish them the best of luck.
And then on Wednesday I went to see The Decemberists. (Sidenote: I just discovered that their namesake is a group of Russian revolutionaries.) They played a bunch of songs from their new album, Picaresque, which I hadn’t heard before then. Needless to say, the songs were exceptional and one of them is the current Song of the Week. The opener here was Okkervil River, pronounced “AWK-er-ville.” They had more of a country twang than I normally like, but they had a couple really good songs. The singer could try a lot harder to stay on key. :-/ The upside: their merch guy was trés cute!