This was probably the best Bridge School I’ve been to.  Maybe.  How can I even think about writing that sentence when I’ve seen Bridge Schools with Pearl Jam?  With Counting Crows?  With Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young?  Maybe it’s just the fresh-in-my-memory-aspect, but it was a great show.

Cat Power: Arrived during the set, didn’t really listen much.  OK.

Death Cab for Cutie: Solid … but nothing incredible.  I Will Follow You Into the Dark and Title and Registration got my attention.

Sarah McLachlin: Surprisingly good.   Her songs seem self-indulgent with all the vocal gymnastics … but the City of Angels soundtrack song was pretty riveting.  Go Sarah.

Wilco:  Good.  See my previous post about Wilco and large venues: more of the same feeling.  Nicely (at least for me), Wilco didn’t play any of the long solo-stuff standard for their headlining gigs.  As usual, listening to California Stars at Shoreline on the lawn is an experience that I wish everyone could enjoy.  Hearing that song when Wilco opened for REM in ’03 is a moment I will never forget.

Norah Jones: Wow.  So good.  I love her voice.  Why haven’t bought her new album yet?  Also, she covered Wilco’s Jesus, Etc … which Wilco had performed earlier that night.  Never seen that happen.  fwiw: Wilco’s was better but props to Norah for a nice rendition that was all her own.  In fact, every one of Norah’s covers were very distinct from the original.  I’d buy an album of her covers.  Will have to look out for that…

Neil Young: My favorite Neil Young set thus far among Bridgeschools.  The song about how a song can’t change anything was topical … and the country/bluesy song was nice … and the classics were classics.  I need to round out my Neil Young albums and learn.

I went into this Bridge School with low expectations since Death Cab and Wilco were the only ones I was interested in … but all the performers I wasn’t there to see there the ones I remember best.

p.s. I like the night timing of the Saturday show better than the afternoon Sunday show … but I am a bit bummed I missed this!

Cake?  Really?  They’re still around?  Indeed.

Caked performed a charity show for a San Francisco energy proposal which, very oddly, drew a crowd whose age averaged ~35 years old and didn’t seem like the type to normally attend concerts.  At 26, I was one of the younger folks at the show.

The show was good but not great.  The lead singer had a cold that prevented him from singing high notes, so I imagine we missed out on a couple good songs.  Still, props to him for powering through at all; if he hadn’t said anything, I wouldn’t have even noticed.

This concert certainly falls within my continuing series of disappointments when bands don’t play exactly which songs I would’ve liked to hear (See Wilco).  Specifically, there was no Italian Leather Couch or Love You Madly.  I did get Stickshifts and Safety Belts, which I had forgotten but was thankful for.  Also, it was satisfying to finally hear Sheeps Go to Heaven after using it as the theme song for my robotics team in highschool (whose mascot was Gompei, the Evil Goat).  Also, I had forgotten the nice Sad Songs and Waltzes.  (FWIW, I discovered the most ridiculous sing-along of Sad Song here.)

My other memories:

• The lead singer’s shirt with a kitten/cat wearing an American bandana with sparkles.  Amazing.

• The giveaway of a lemon tree.

• The annoying little clacker thing the lead singer used to make the pop-crackle-crackle-crackle noise.  It’s kind of annoying in person.

This Sigur Ros concert on Friday night was the start of an entirely insane weekend that included bars, Rock Band, ultimate, work, two parties, more bars, a rave, a diner, and a wedding.   In addition to insane, ‘well-coordinated’ would be the 2^nd best phrase to describe the weekend.

With regard to ‘well coordinated’:  first, I found a spot to stand at the Greek just as Sigur Ros started to play.   Second, the rain that was threatening the entire night held off until mid-way through the finale.  The timing of the rain probably sounds terrible … but it fit in perfectly with the song’s mood.   Anyone there that didn’t mind a little water certainly enjoyed the show more as the rain grew from light sprinkles to decent rainful during the ever deafening final song.

This was the third time I’ve seen Sigur Ros (Warfield ’03, Boston ’06) … and each time it’s slightly less exciting.  Of course, each time I am also sitting slightly further away.  I need to buy better tickets.

With regard to the music: the new album is good (see the nakedness) and played great at the concert.  In fact, in a sort of odd reversal from the standard concert routine, I actually enjoyed the newer songs that I was less familiar as-much-or-more than the oldies that I did know.  I remember distinctly how this was not the case at a Tom Petty concert at the Greek two years ago. 

Went to the Outside Lands festival on Sunday, mainly to see Bon Iver and Wilco.  In fact, besides a couple minutes of Jack Johnson, I didn’t really pay attention to any of the other sets.

Bon Iver’s show was great.  It felt quite different from the show at The Independent because of the stark change in location and number of people.  Still, the chanting during Wolves of ‘what might have been lost’ was perhaps even better at this show.  There were a couple frat-boy types just in front of me that were clearly skeptical of Bon Iver until that moment; the guy drinking Jack Daniels was converted into a Bon Iver fan over the course of that song.

Wilco’s set was good … but they never play Sunken Treasure.  I enjoy their other songs; I’ve even grown to like the longer solos of Impossible Germany and Kidsmoke … but I just want to hear Sunken Treasure.  It’s like an itch.  Unfortunately, this show also cemented my feeling that Wilco in a large venue is not really worth it.  At least not for much money or many  more times.

And my last story from the show: A professional scalper bought the shirt off my back for $26 bucks.  It was the Finding Technocolor shirt from woot.com.  He said he liked to buy one shirt of someone’s back every concert.  I did like the shirt but was happy to do it for the story and the opportunity to get a Wilco shirt.  And on that note: the 70% bamboo and 30% cotton shirts feel amazing.

Good mezzanine tickets (2^nd row in the small Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley) for Eddie Vedder in a solo-acoustic show supporting the Into the Wild soundtrack songs?  Could this be the best concert I’ve ever been to?

A couple notes:

-          Eddie brought out surprise guest Sean Penn and sang a little song about him.  Pretty decent.

-          Eddie commented that the hilariously bad drum circle occurring near the theatre.  Pretty amusing.

-          Eddie performed several Dylan covers … all well done.  Masters of War is (and always is) stunning. (not just pretty stunning.)

-          Eddie said that when he played Guaranteed for his young daughter, she got very concerned and stopped him when he sang “Don’t come closer or I’ll have to go.”  Funny little image.

A well timed mention by my roommate and Paste conspired to bring Bon Iver (‘bone e-vair’ – ‘good winter’ in French) to my attention.  I’m so glad they did.

Justin Vernon recorded For Emma, Forever Ago while living alone in a cabin in the middle of Wisconsin wilderness.  I knew that fact going into the album and have found I can’t listen to it without picturing the lead singer wearing a flannel shirt and carhartt jacket while singing into a lo-fi microphone set up in the middle of a sparse one-room cabin that doesn’t have any furniture except a tattered chair and some books scattered on the floor near a simple cot with a sleeping bag on it.  I don’t know if that’s what it was like … but somehow that one background sentence and the music just end up creating this amazing picture.

I think part of the album’s power comes from knowing that everything sung is said to no one but himself.  On Skinny Love, Justin screams “I told you to be patient \ and I told you it’ll be fine \…\ Who will loooove you? Who will figh-hiiitte?” … which is powerful if the lyrics came from a real conversation … but heart-stopping as you realize the second part is likely coming from the continuation of the conversation in his head.

The album overtook me during Wolves; the simple repeated line “what might have been lost” produces a near-meditative state.  It’s one of those moments where music produces a feeling of religious-like awe.

Although I was excited to see Bon Iver in concert, a little part of me didn’t want to ruin the very personal listening experience I’d had with the music thus far.  Going from me with headphones to me with a couple hundred other people (and poor concert-acoustics) wasn’t appealing.

Bon Iver largely reconciled my personal listening experiences of the album in a live concert setting by playing the entire album in order.  Since, given my many listens, the song ordering on the album feels perfect, indeed it would’ve been extremely jarring to hear the songs in any other order; the setlist-as-album decision was brilliant.

I don’t have too much to say about the actual show; the songs were well done and nicely gripping.  It was a bit odd to have three people in the band since it was recorded alone … but obviously he can’t do everything at the same time live. Wolves and re: Stacks were the stand-outs.  Since he only has one album with 8 real songs on it, the show (like the album) left me wanting more.

I’ve been listening to the album as I wrote this and am up to re: Stacks.  The last verse needs to be mentioned as one of the best album finishes:

                this is not the sound of a new man,
                or a crispy realization.
                it’s sound of the unlocking and lift away
                your love will be
                safe with me

I wish I could remember why I bought Nada Surf’s second album in 2004.  I had seen their music video Popular in high school (roughly 2000) …  but I never checked out anything else.  Mysteriously, my next memory of Nada Surf is in 2004: my senior year of college, listening to their second album in my car on the way back from Ridge winery.  I don’t remember how I got the album, why it was in my car, or why I listened to it that day … but it was one of those listens that sticks with you: the one where you start appreciating.

Fast forward another four years to 2008: an article in Paste prompts me to check out their new album, Lucky, and after a good listen online I buy tickets to see two Nada Surf concerts within a month of one another.

That was the path that brought me to the Swedish American House and the Fillmore to see Nada Surf.  The first show was an acoustic warm-up for their upcoming tour and the second show was the big show with a full band.  It’s no surprise that the acoustic show – which was much smaller – was more interesting because it was more intimate … but what was surprising was how enjoyable the Fillmore show was given how spoiled I had become from the acoustic show.

Per usual, my random takeaways from the shows…

-          See These Bones wasn’t very impressive on the album … but it was amazing live (at both shows).

-          At the acoustic show, the band joked that their ending high-pitched fade-out of Weightless sounded like a “herd of cats.”  At the electric show, the band asked the audience to sing along with them at the end.  It sounds decent to me.

-          I liked the lead singer’s at the acoustic show that Are You Lightning is not about God; it’s actually about his son.

-          The drumming (really just tapping on a wooden box) at the acoustic show seemed utterly simplistic.  I probably can’t judge since my only drumming experience is a couple songs in Rock Band … but it really seemed like they used the same beat for just about every song.

-          At the acoustic show, I sat one seat down from a 10-year boy celebrating his birthday by attending the show with his parents.  I thought it was a little odd … but then at the Fillmore show, there was another young kid there … odd.  San Francisco Parenting 101.

-          Positively impacting my opinion of both of these shows were my choice seating arrangements: I went alone to the acoustic show and snagged a seat 15 rows from the front … and at the Fillmore show, I went early and sat at the table upstairs closest to the stage.  Very nice.

-          The show posters for the acoustic three-city pre-tour shows were awesome: each city’s poster fit with the others to make a larger poster.  Each poster was normally $10, but since it was the end of the tour, they sold the three-pack for $20 total.  I was the last person to get the three-set before they sold out.  Those three along with the Fillmore show make me look like a much bigger fan than I really am.

-          Last note: Sea Wolf opened at the Fillmore and did a decent job.  I familiarized myself before the show and was immediately hooked as Middle Distance Runner started playing … but I haven’t found another song to match it.

That’s it.

After the Vampire Weekend show at 7pm in the Haight, I took the #7 bus to SOMA to check out a “groundbreaking event combining a 20-piece orchestra, DJs, lighting, and art installations” at Mezzanine by a group called Mercury Soul.

I can’t really give a proper review to Mercury Soul because, quite honestly, I wasn’t paying attention to the music very much.  My friends and I sat in the upstairs where the music was a distant second-interest to our own conversations.  Every so often I’d glance down and see the orchestra playing … but I could never seem to catch on to the melody (if there was one).  The DJ interludes between each of the pieces were far less ‘challenging’ to enjoy. 

Even though I didn’t really like the music much, I am still glad these types of things exist and hope that one day I’ll find one that speaks to me.  (Perhaps it is my confirmation bias and post-purchase rationalization bias that keeps me going.)

And for comparison: Zap! by EnsembleRobot at the Museum of Sciencewas even more discordant than Mercury Soul and, worse, that show made everyone pay attention to the music; at least I could still enjoy the night.

Tuesday: My roommate mentions Vampire Weekend
Wednesday: Vampire Weekend shows up in my feed reader … everywhere. (see at right)
Thursday: Roommate buys CD. A friend’s Facebook status mentions the Vampire Weekend
Friday: I go to a show.

The HYPE
The Vampire Weekend’s hype is defeaning.  They are on every internet. 

Now I haven’t read many of the blog posts so perhaps somehow has already covered this question, but did they do anything to kick start the hype or is it just a lucky break?  Since the blogosphere is a telephone-game-echo-chamber of opinion, once a band passes the tipping point they’ll keep resonating (ie: look at this post) … but I’m curious if Vampire Weekend did something to start all this?  What was their secret sauce?

[sidenote: The hype hit reality with Vampire Weekend getting distributed at Target stores across the country at an $8.99 sale price on opening day.  That sort of distribution doesn’t happen without some serious justification.  I can just imagine the meeting between their label and Target executives as they’re shown charts of internet searches…]

On the non-cynical/skeptical side — on the side that believes it was just a lucky break — I’ll say that ‘Vampire Weekend’ - both their name and their music - is extremely catchy.  I was hooked the first time I heard ’Who the fuck needs an Oxford Comma?’

More on the music
I’ve been describing Vampire Weekend’s “sound” to be a more-poppy The Walkmen.  (Everytime I hear the first wail of Vampire Weekend’s ‘Mansard Roof’ I think I’m listening to The Walkmen…)  I find the drums and lyrics “nicely complicated” … and the occasional bursts of texture from the keyboards/guitar round things out nicely.  (I never seem to hear bass lines much so my lack of comment isn’t damning.)  I have no idea what the lyrics are about — but it doesn’t matter.

[sidenote: I looked up Oxford Comma. Interesting.  I use them.]

And on the concert
Vampire Weekend played on Thursday at Popscene … but I didn’t make it because of the rain.  Instead, I went to their free in-store show at Amoeba Music in the Haight on Friday.  I’d never been to a show at Amoeba and was pleasantly surprised.

Vampire Weekend played ~6 songs, including all of the stuff on their MySpace page that I was most familiar with.  The drummer had the most energy, singer was good, keyboards and bass were having fun but nothing special.

My only problem with the show was that the music was too up-beat to stand still to … but the tempo varied too much to really dance well to; I (and everyone else) just kind of tapped feet and nodded heads.  The music seems great for iPodding through the subway or working out at the gym … but what do you do when you hear it live?

Who knows?

p.s. Amoeba Music should eventually have some video from the show available. Until then, here’s a crappy cell phone picture I took:

I saw Swell Season at the Regency Grand Ballroom on Friday, November 9th, 2007.   Swell Season is made of up Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard (lead singer from The Frames); their songs together eventually became the feature-length movie-musical Once.  I saw Glen Hansard with The Frames at the Somerville Theatre in Fall 2005 (opening for Josh Ritter) and even saw Swell Season in Fall 2006 in a short set opening for Damien Rice.  I enjoyed the previous shows … but not nearly as much as this most recent show.  Glen is even more powerful with just his voice and an acoustic guitar while Marketa is a reticent force. ‘Heartfelt’ is the best word I can use to describe both their songs and their performance.

A couple thoughts about the show:

1. Glen played the same beat-up guitar he played in the movie Once.  Great touch.
2. Marketa didn’t play The Hill, one of the best songs of the movie. 
3. Marketa didn’t say almost anything during the show.  Would’ve liked to hear her a little.
4. WOW I LOVE YOUTUBE: Glen did an amazing rendition of Van Morrison’s Into The Mystic. They also did a really fun version of a Bob Dylan’s You Ain’t Goin Nowhere.  Ohhh-eeee….Ride me high, tomorrow’s the day my bride’s gonna come … (update: here’s a better video of the dylan cover.) 
5. For me, Leave was the most powerful song of the night.  Glen singing “Let go of my hand \ you said what you have to \ now Leave \ Leeaaveee …” Unforgettable.

And now for something completely different:

I was reading about Lewy Body Dementia (LBD, sort of like Alzheimers) today and put on the Once soundtrack for some background music.  Falling Slowly came on and froze me.  (If you want to listen along with me, download an mp3 of Falling Slowly.)

I had been reading lines such as the following:

• “An early typical sign of LBD is occasional loss of attention and alertness”
• “Persistent difficulties with short-term memory and recalling specific names of people or objects show up much later in LBD.”
• “…may have more difficulty responding appropriately during a conversation, such as finding the right words to express themselves or staying on the topic.”
• “…there may be signs of depression, such as increased irritability, poor concentration, lack of attention during interactions, sadness or a negative mood, poor appetite or sleep…”

All the while I was listening to Swell Season singing “I don’t know you” … “Words fall through me \ always fool me \ and I can’t react” … and

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can’t go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I’m painted black

It’s probably a stretch that the song is about dementia … I even heard Glen explain Falling Slowly as about ’seeing a girl across the room at a party and wanting her’ … but the meaning changed for me just now.

Important lesson: much like Helvetica (the font), a good song (like a good font) can hold many different meanings for many different messages to many different people. 

p.s. Here’s a poor quality cellphone picture I took at the show: