You know, it’s really too bad that I wasn’t able to write about this show before seeing Sufjan Stevens; now it’s just going to seem like these guys are an afterthought when, in fact, they are anything but.  I dig the debut of The Band of Horses that came out this year, and I really wanted to go see them live.  The only catch was that the show started at 9 o’clock on a Sunday night in Lawrence.  I almost passed at seeing them but my friend Josh wanted to go and that was really all I needed to push me over the edge.

The opening act was a guy named Chad Vangaalen.  The guy did something I had never seen done before.  Not only did he play guitar and sing, but he also played a kick drum (and sometimes some symbols) as he did so.  Not only was it pretty cool, but it made you wonder why Jack White has kept around the Meg character for so long.  He was a pretty solid opener and the crowd really liked him.

The Band of Horses took to the stage and never stopped rockin’ it.  I thought a good portion of their set would be somewhat mellow, but they really created a bit sound live.  At times, they had three guitarists playing which is something I never would have expected.  The obvious star of the show was their frontman and his astounding voice.  When I first heard them, I thought they were sort of ripping off My Morning Jacket’s patented reverb with their vocals, but I no longer think that’s the case.  They put on a great show, and they left me as a much bigger fan of theirs than before.

I went to see Sufjan Stevens play last night at The Riviera in Chicago, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pretty darn excited about it.  I didn’t quite know what to expect of the show, but I’m happy to say that it ended up being one of the best performances I have ever seen.

I showed up just before the show started at 7:30 to the sight of a line outside the venue.  Once I got inside, I found that the place was absolutely packed with people from a wide variety of ages.  It was clearly the most diverse crowd I’ve been a part of as far as age is concerned.  One thing for certain, though, was that they really loved Sufjan Stevens.  I’ve heard fans work themselves into a frenzy over Connor Oberst at Bright Eyes shows, and I would imagine the fanfare wouldn’t be too far off from last night.  At one point before the show started, Sufjan came onto the stage in the dark to tune his guitar.  Once people noticed it was him, there were about 50 flashes that went off to capture their first moment of seeing him. 

Sufjan and his accompanying fourteen-piece orchestra took the stage at approximately 8:30 while wearing bright, glowing wings.  From the moment they launched into the first song, it was evident that something pretty special was going to take place.  I’ve always thought he was immensely talented, but after seeing him I feel that even that doesn’t do him justice.  Just listening to the orchestration of the often complex song arrangements while knowing that not only did Sufjan write the music but he played all the instruments, I couldn’t help but think that he is easily one of the most gifted musicians on the planet.  Throw in the fact that he’s got a voice that can keep a crowd of 2,500 to complete silence and even move some to tears (I saw some) and you can imagine that it was a pretty moving experience.  For visual affect, they had a screen that displayed what looked like homemade videos that complimented the content of the songs that were being played.  This really enhanced the songs well. 

His setlist drew from most of his catalogue but favored material off of Illinois which is what I was hoping would happen.  It was really cool to hear songs off of that album while actually being in Illinois.  They were clearly the songs that got the biggest reaction.  Speaking of reactions, I couldn’t help but notice the reaction people had to each song as they ended.  There were two middle aged couples in front of me and they kept turning to each other after each tune, shaking their heads in amazement. 

I, too, was awfully amazed.  Seeing and hearing his songs in a live setting with an orchestra really allows his music to take a whole new shape.  The mellow songs sounded even more gorgeous and the upbeat ones even more epic.  While being able to hear most of the songs I wanted to hear (there were a couple off of Welcome to Michigan I would have liked to hear), the highlight of the night was hearing a new song Sufjan said had been in his head for about 10 years titled “Majesty, Snowbird”.  It ended up sounding absolutely stunning.  I remember thinking there’s no way he could top Illinois when I first heard it.  If he starts creating music like “Majesty, Snowbird”, though, his future works will be nothing short of astonishing.

It’s really hard to put into words what it was like to be at this show.  I had a discussion with a friend a couple weeks ago about what my favorite live shows have been.  I’ve never really been able to rank shows like that so I said I really didn’t know.  Seeing Sufjan Stevens, though, would rank it right up there towards the top.  It was amazing.

It seems like I’ve had no time to write on this darn thing these past couple of days.  I was totally planning on writing about seeing Band of Horses last night but here it’s 11:30 and I have yet to finish packing for my upcoming two weeks of travel.  The good news is that I’m seeing Sufjan Stevens tomorrow night and will be spending the weekend in NYC for fun.  I just wish I could freeze time to devote more time reflecting on the goings on in my life lately.  Anyway, I’ll post more tomorrow hopefully.

Damian “Jr. Gong’ Marley

After seeing him open for Ben Harper, I told our group we should really try to see him.  We showed up about halfway through his set, and we all agreed he put on a great show.  The crowd was really into it, especially during the Bob Marley covers. 

Jose Gonzalez

I only know one song of his and like it a lot so I was looking forward to seeing him.  His mellow brand of solo acoustic tunes would have been best in a small venue setting, but it was nice to just hear some relaxing music for a change.  There’s no doubt he’s talented.

Matisyahu

After seeing Damien Marley earlier, Matisyahu really paled in comparison.  Plus, the whole “I’m a devout Jewish rapper” thing just comes off too gimmicky for me.  Some people in the crowd were into him, but I just felt too much of the reggae rap sounded the same.  Maybe I would have liked his performance better had I known more of his songs.  We left early from his set to get a good spot for New Pornos.

The New Pornographers

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of these guys.  It was a great surprise to see that Neko Case was able to join them for this performance.  She’s been busy touring for her own solo album and hasn’t traveled with them much.  She definitely adds a lot to their shows, in my opinion.  As expected, the band really rocked it and sounded great.  Neko kept talking about how freezing it was outside (it was in the 90s during the day), and Carl Newman joked around throughout their set.  I love that no one in the band acts like rock stars at all.  Those in our group who hadn’t seen them before were really impressed.  It didn’t hurt that our spot was really close to the band.

The Flaming Lips

While I was bummed they were playing at the same time as Ben Harper, I couldn’t wait to see these guys again after seeing them put on an amazing show at Lolla.  I honestly think I could see their onstage antics/props every week and would still have a smile across my face.  Once again, Wayne rolled around the crowd in a bubble to start the show, and they played the same setlist as they did when I saw them a couple months ago which is sort of disappointing.  The only bummer was that they just didn’t seem as enthusiastic to be there as they did the last time around.  I assumed it was because they were just extra hyped to blow everyone away at Lolla, but M.Toast explained to me that they’d just finished using their UFO prop for the first time in Oklahoma City and were likely drained from it.  It was still entertain, though.

Muse

The thing about this year’s ACL is that many of the bands I saw were smaller acts who were nowhere near the style that would pull off an arena show.  Muse, though, was an exception.  I’ve liked these guys since their debut and, even though some of their music is a little overdone, I think they have some pretty good chops.  Muse simply blew away the crowd with the most impressive stage effects of the festival aside from (I’m guessing) Massive Attack.  They were really, really impressive live.

Tom Petty

There’s not a whole lot to say about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers that hasn’t been said before.  They have an amazing array of hits that can fill a whole setlist, and they still manage to both rock and get the crowd involved in singalongs.  It was supposed to rain all day and the weather almost held off until the final hour of the festival, dumping heavy rain on everyone about a half hour into their set.  They decided to take an intermission and wait for the rain to cease.  While it was annoying to have to wait in the rain, it ended up being a blessing in disguise because many people took off and we were able to get pretty darn close to the stage.  They came back on to play for another hour or so, and closed out ACL in a fantastic way. 

We all had a blast at ACL this year, and it’s pretty much turned into something we’d like to have be an annual event.  There was a lot of good music, some great nightlife, and good way to catch up with friends.  I’m already looking forward to next year.

Sadly, the second day of Austin City Limits just happened to fall on the same day my alma mater played Iowa in football.  As much as I wanted to get to the park early to check out some music, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to watch the game.  The plan was to watch the first half of the game in the hotel and then head to a sports bar to watch it and have lunch.  It got to just before kickoff and ESPN went completely blank in our room.  It left us scrambling to get ready and head to the sports bar early.  As a result, we missed ISU scoring on the opening drive.  The sports bar was a lot of fun, though, and a friend who was in town met up with us as well as the girls from the night before.  We ended up losing, though, after being ahead for most of the game.  It was a real heart-breaker and only fueled my hatred for the Hawkeyes. 

Now for the music…

The Blue Van

It was between these guys, Ben Kweller, and Galactic, and I opted to check them out because I was most familiar with their classic rock-styled music.  While the performance was a little close to a cliched rock show, they put on a really energetic show.  At one point, the pianist even got on top of the piano to pound on the keys.  Sure, it’s a tad cheesy, but it was good to see a band go all out instead of just go through the motions.

The Secret Machines

While I’m not a big fan of a lot of post-rock bands, I do kind of like The Secret Machines.  They played at Lolla but I wasn’t able to see them so I was hoping to catch them this time around.  They put on a pretty impressive show.

The Long Winters

I’ve become a fan of their new album which has also received its fair share of critical praise.  This was the only band I was interested in seeing that was playing at the tent stage.  There were bleachers around the tent so it was nice to take a load off and listen to some of their tunes.  Overall, I thought they were pretty good. Calexico I didn’t really know what to expect from their live show.  Half of their music is pretty rockin’ while the other half could lull me to sleep.  It ends up their live experience is somewhat of a mixture of the two.  I had a hard time keeping interested to their set and took notice of the massive crowds that had amassed in the park.  We all felt that there were more people in attendance this year than last, and I took a picture to show just how crowded it was.

  

  

The night was a lot of fun.  I love that we’d been out sweating and walking around in dirt all day but we were able to blend right in at the bar.  The night scene in Austin is definitely tough to beat. 

As I wrote earlier, I ended up getting to Austin later than expected.  This was disappointing because I was hoping to at least catch Gnarls Barkley again as well as Stars whom I missed seeing at Lollapalooza.  By the time I met up with a couple friends, dropped my bags off at the hotel, and got into Zilker Park, it was about 5:30.  We immediately headed over to start watching bands with what little time was left in the day.

Gomez

I’ve seen Gomez twice before in smaller venues and was anxious to see how they’d hold up in a festival crowd.  Being that I’m a big fan of the band, I thought they were still pretty good.  Instead of playing their best songs, they opted to pull mostly from their new album which was too bad.  We stayed for half of their set so we could also catch Cat Power who was playing at the same time.

Cat Power

It’s funny that this was the second time in three days that I was able to see her live.  Needless to say, there weren’t many surprises to her set.   It was still good, though, and the crowd seemed to really like her.  Cat Power included the covers I saw before (”Satisfaction” and “Crazy”) and also played some of her best tunes (”I Don’t Blame You”).  She also wore the same thing she wore two nights prior.  I hope she found a washing machine beforehand.

Thievery Corporation

I think these guys may be the only repeat act from last year’s ACL.  I didn’t see them last year but had heard they were pretty fun.  They ended up living up to the hype by putting on a fun, energetic, funky set that had the crowd really involved. 

Van Morrison

Van Morrison was slated to close out the first day of ACL, and I could tell a lot of people were pretty excited to see him.  I, for one, didn’t know what to expect but was hoping to at least hear him play “Wild Nights” and “Brown Eyed Girl”.  Unfortunately, Van Morrison’s performance was sleep-inducing.  The guy just stood there looking completely bored.  Even the attendees that were my parent’s age said they felt like they were watching a Lawrence Welk concert.  It was almost as if he just wanted to show up to get his money and leave.  We stayed for 40 minutes of his set and opted to beat the crowd and take off. 

Friday Night

After waiting literally two hours to get to the front of the cab line, we finally made it to 6th Street to hit up a few bars.  As we walked amongst the mob of people in the street, I heard someone yelling my name over to the left.  Confused, I looked over to see Sheena and Linda, two friends from college, coming towards me.  It ends up that Linda lives in Austin and Sheena was in town from California to visit for the weekend.  We immediately headed to a nearby bar and caught up over drinks.   Very random.  It ended up being a lot of fun.

I left Austin this morning after partaking in a great weekend of music with friends.  I’m now in Boston for the week and am currently without my luggage.  As if this past weekend’s episode with United Airlines wasn’t enough, they decided not to include my luggage with my second plane today.  It’s now one in the morning and they have yet to call me despite them telling me my suitcase should get in at 11.  Throw in the fact that I’m pretty worn out from being outside and being up late for the past three days, and it’s safe to say I’m pretty disgruntled.  ACL was a lot of fun, though.  I’ll post about it this week, I promise.

As evidenced by my last post, I didn’t go to bed until late last night.  I don’t know why I was up so late.  I was just wide awake for some reason.  It was a poor choice because I had to wake up at 5 this morning to catch my flight out of O’Hare so I could make it in time to catch all of the first day of Austin City Limits today.  It ends up the lack of sleep was the worst of my problems.

There were a multitude of events this morning that lead to me arriving later than I usually like to arrive at the airport.  I finally got to the airport about an hour before my plane was scheduled to take off only to be greeted with a monster line of people waiting to check in.  I immediately got a little nervous but remained confident I’d have no problems.  Lo and behold, I got to the check-in kiosk 44 minutes before my flight took off.  The cutoff was 45 minutes.  I talked with the person at the gate and told them I WOULD make that flight if they’d just let me through.  They insisted that it was a rule and that, even if I made it, my bags may not.  I told them I didn’t care when my bags got there because I could get them later in the evening since I was staying by the Austin airport.  They had none of it and made me check in for standby on a later flight.

At this point, I was pretty ticked off.  The later flight doesn’t leave until 12:40, over 4 hours later than my original flight. The worst part about the whole experience is that I ended up getting to my originally scheduled flight BEFORE they even started boarding.  They still wouldn’t let me on.  It was completely ridiculous.

So here I am, sitting in O’Hare waiting for the hours to tick away before I’m able to head to Texas.  I’m tired, cranky about my scuffle with United, and ticked that I’m going to miss half of the first day of ACL.  I was planning on getting there to see Ted Leo, Stars, and Guster, but hopefully I’ll get there in time to see Gnarls Barkley again.  Definitely frustrating.  I probably won’t be blogging much over the weekend, but I’ll post all about it come Monday.

Oh yeah, and Iowa State plays Iowa tomorrow at 11 central time in ESPN.  Go Clones!

I went with my buddy Nick to see Cat Power at The Vic in Chicago last night.  I was hesitant at first to see her because she’s playing at Austin City Limits this weekend, and I knew I could see here there.  My decision came down to two things: 1) I had a feeling a smaller venue would be a much better environment to see her instead of a festival crowd and 2) another band I’m excited to see again (Gomez) is playing the same time she is this weekend. 

Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall) has built a reputation of being unpredictable during her shows.  I have read of shows in which she’s turned her whole back on the crowd which playing.  She’s even freaked out and ran off the stage before because she felt anxious in front of the crowd.  Needless to say, I went into the show not quite knowing what to expect other than anticipating some weirdness to ensue.  I also kinda braced myself to develop a little crush for her by the end of the night. She is reportedly completely sobered up so I had no idea what she’d be like.

The Memphis Rhythm Band served as her backing band during most of the night.  The band took the stage at around 8:40 and played a couple of instrumental songs to showcase their talent.  After the songs were over, the pianist played the opening chords to “The Greatest” and Cat Power was introduced into the stage.  As the crowd cheered, she sang the opening verse as her bangs covered her eyes.  I was wondering how long it would take for something odd to occur knowing her past actions.  It ends up, I had to wait about 20 seconds into her first song.  There was a slight hum coming from one of the amps and she stopped mid-verse to try to fix it as the band played on.  She then did the “timeout” sign with her hands and she stopped singing.  The band stopped soon afterwards and everyone just sat there for a moment not knowing what to do.  It was weird and awkward yet surprisingly entertaining.  Then, in an attempt to make light of the situation, one of the backup dancers goes, “Let’s try this again…ladies and gentlemen, Cat Power!” and the show basically restarted.  It was the first of many quirky oddities throughout the evening.

One thing is for certain, Chan Marshall is pretty darn easy on the eyes.  For a couple moments during the night, she took her coat off to reveal a low cut, sleeveless shirt which complimented her virtually flawless figure pretty well.  At a time when image is almost more important than the musical product artists create, one would think her attractiveness would be the focal point of her performance.  Thankfully, she’s talented (and quirky) enough that this isn’t the case at all.

What draws people to Cat Power is her voice.  The first time I heard her on record I knew I was hooked.  Hearing her voice coming through the speakers live is the only thing better than hearing it on CD.  It may possibly be the most mesmerizing voice I’ve heard.  I’m guessing it may be helped along, in part, by her smoking  habit (she smoked about half a dozen throughout the show). 

She played with the band for about an hour before playing for about a half hour on her own.  It was at this point that the show really took off.  She played some really cool covers including a haunting version of “House of the Rising Sun” with reverb cranked on her guitar and took a large amount of time just talking and joking with the crowd.  While she was obviously kind of weird, she was also very engaging and entertaining as she talked about everything from her new shoes to her manager who gets on her for talking too much during shows to her favorite Arrested Development quotes. 

It was very clear that she feels very awkward when all the spotlight is on her.  When playing on her own, I don’t believe she finished one song, and she’d always say things like, “Sorry, I’m almost done, I swear.”  When the band played, Cat Power just danced around when it wasn’t her turn to sing because she didn’t really know what to do with herself.  The strangest example of this was during “Where is My Love”.  It’s a someone emotional song yet she kind of danced around during it because you could tell she felt weird with the focus on her. 

After her solo set, the band returned to play some more upbeat tunes.  In one of the funnier moments of the performance, they covered Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” only she changed the chorus to “I know I’m Crazy, I don’t give a shit”.  It was funny of her to be able to poke fun of herself and her quirkiness. They also covered “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones before the band left the stage and she played two more songs by herself to close out the show.

While I’ve seen better performances before, there are very few that I’ve seen that have left everyone with the feeling like they really got to “know” the performer.  This was one of those shows, and it made for one very memorable evening. 

My mother came into town for the first time in about a year this past weekend.  It was good to have her back in Kansas City because it was the first time she’d been here since my sister moved here last May.  It’s pretty weird to think my sister has lived in KC for four months, and my mom hadn’t seen her apartment yet. 

My sister and mom spent a large portion of the weekend shopping and doing bonding.  I skipped out on most of the shopping, but it was going to hang out at night and during dinner.  I must say, the highlight of the weekend was getting my mom to rock out to Guitar Hero.  She found it to be pretty tough at first but she was playing “More Than a Feeling” like a pro in no time. 

I ended up going in on some Chiefs tickets with a couple of buddies to see them play the Bengals on opening day.  I’ve turned into a pretty big Chiefs fan since moving to KC and was excited to see how the team looked in their first regular season game. 

After partaking in a few beverages and nibbling on some snacks, we made our way into Arrowhead to find some quite lovely sexist gates to get into the game.  I had to do a double take with the signs.  I’m sure there’s some logic to it (i.e. certain purse screeners who are unafraid of the sight of unused tampons), but I still thought it was odd.

By now, most people know what happened in the game.  The offense played way too conservatively, and Trent Green got his clock cleaned and had to leave the game on a stretcher.  As much as I hate to see him go down, I think I may be one of the few people who thinks the hit was legal.  It poured for about half the game which was unfortunate.  Luckily, our group came prepared and stayed primarily dry through the poor conditions.  In the end, the Chiefs lost to the Bengals and Chiefs fans were left with serious doubts to how good they’ll be this year.

The thing that always amazes me about Arrowhead is the crowd that seems to occupy much of the upper deck of the stadium.  It’s almost as if God handpicked the trashiest of the white trash out of every Walmart in Kansas City and plopped them into the nosebleed seats.  I seriously lost count of how many handlebar mustaches I saw in the place.  It also baffles me how so many grown men still wear Chiefs Zuba pants to games.  There was a parachuting brigade that landed on the field at halftime, and I couldn’t help but take a picture of some of the guys in our section who stared in the sky in awe at that parachutists. One of them turned his head at the last second so I wasn’t able to capture his mouth agape, displaying only a handful of teeth.

 It was still a fun time even though they lost.  I really hope they’re able to turn things around and contend for a playoff spot.  I ended up going home to shower and change before meeting up with my mom and sis for dinner.  It was a good ending to a good weekend.