WEEKEND UPDATE

Friday was a very fine day.

The early spanish class that usually makes me want to hurt myself went by very easily even though we had Oral exams. Our oral exam was to put on this play and... well, it was interesting. It was most definitely better than sitting in a regular class early on a friday morning.

Also, my boss told me on wednesday that I didn't have to go to work, so I had the whole day free! I did nothing, of course. I went out a couple of hours ago, and now, being the old lady that I am, I think it's bed hitting time for me. I need to make a note to self: not being allowed to go to the bathroom or leave someplace is bad - even if the stuff there is free.

On the bill for tomorrow:
shopping (yes.)
Phantom Planet/Harlem Shakes @ 11

we have this event week at school now called Bacchanal. The main even is this top secret concert put on by the University and this year I (of course) don't know who the headliner is, but I know that the openers are busdriver and Common. Last year I believe the main acts were Kayne West and De La Soul. Hopefully the top secret artist will come on stage before I have to go downtown - all I know is that it should be good... and all this secrecy is making me curious.

edit: turns out the headliner was Common. I wasn't there, but I heard it was good.

AND SO BEGINS MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH ADAM GREEN

He had me at hello.


I have to say, his concert tonight was the best concert I've ever been to. I don't mean best as in he put on a better show than anyone else I've seen - I mean it was the most comfortable, enjoyable show that I've ever had the pleasure of attending. Adam Green is such a regular guy; he was never snobby or aloof. He put on a great show and I was basically smiling the whole time. You could tell everyone there was a fan - there was so much love in that room. And of course, the love for the man with the crazy green eyes only grew when he deviated from the setlist to take requests. He took probably as many if not more requests than songs on the setlist. It would have been great if someone had called out "Friends of Mine," but he did play "Bluebirds" and "Carolina" which are some of my other favorites. If I had to see an Adam Green show everyday for the rest of my life, I'd probably be the better for it. I felt like I was sitting in a room of friends watching one of my other friends perform. It was great. Seriously. Most concerts take something out of you emotionally or physically, but this one just made me happy. I have so much energy right now! too bad I have to go to bed. (oral exam tomorrow)

traditional setlist, but probably about half of what he ended up playing:


It was such a nice show - even the drugged up gratuitously making out couple next to me couldn't make me unhappy!

The openers were the Gnomes (which later backed Adam) and the Witnesses. I reccomend them both!

HMMM

well it seems that all I've really talked about on here so far is music and/or the concerts I've been to, but I really don't mean this to be any kind of music/audioblog. There are far more and far better blogs out there that I couldn't hold a candle to (even if I tried really hard).

It just so happens that music seems to rule my life. Not that I don't like it - in fact, it rules my life because I love it. I actually feel kinda boring sometimes because it's the only thing that I really have to talk about. and I don't even know that much about it! I was at my internship today listening to submissions and it was extremely tiring. I was racking my brain trying to think of all these comparisons of older music that I could make with the music I was listening to and after an hour or so I was pretty much out of ideas. So, yeah. I like music. But I really don't know anything about it.

For example, the whole Bloc Party - Gang of Four comparison. Bloc Party is awesome (as my next concert description will attest), but I had no idea who Gang of Four was. In fact, the only reason that I've known about Bloc Party as long as I have was by the pure luck of hearing them on a late night radio show back at home, so when people mentioned Gang of Four my response was usually "what?" Until now, of course. I recently aquired some and I must say that I like it - the first song I listened to was "Ether" and I was like, woah! bloc party sounds exactly like this!
So even though it's cool to find out about these kinds of things; it's also kind of intimidating. What else don't I know about? Is there anyway for me to really learn it all?
I don't think there is - and well, that kinda sucks.

But anyway - the point of this was really to tell you that I do other things besides go to concerts and the like. It won't seem like that this week though as it's the last week of class before finals, and I'm doing logging and listening stuff at work. and it doesn't help that I'm going 2 more concerts...

THE SHINS

The Shins

A night of hilarity and interestingness. also known as the Shins show.

sorry guys - this is a long one.

So as the story goes, I was very surprised to see tickets on sale for the sunday Shins show on sunday morning. Finally, not sleeping after my show has rewarded me preciously. I got 2 tickets, asked one friend, got yelled at by my other friends for not buying them tickets (hey, they were not cheap). I don't know whether to thank the Shins or ticketweb or some higher power for this nice break up of ticket sales, but to whomever: thanks.

My friend Neal and I got there about an hour early and waited on the line. As it started freezing, we finally got inside. We secured ourselves 2nd row, and as it was a while before the Brunettes scheduled show time, we had time to waste. A lot of my time was wasted looking at the crowd. This was the first non 18+ show I've been to in New York (or since June for that matter) and here you me, it makes a difference. A big difference. We were stationed by 5 high school students. Two of whom were pretty cool, but turned out to be completely insane. I mean, maybe I was a lame high school student, but these guys were crazy. Hilarious and great, but crazy. At one point they were taking swigs from a Dasani water bottle and chasing it with a can of coke they had. I asked them what it was and they said "water." It was clearly not water. They laughed and let me smell it. It smelled like orange soda; apparently it was orange rum.

So we talk it up a little bit, blah blah blah, the Brunettes come out. To summerize: The Brunettes are a band from New Zealand that are, well, awesome. I realized a bit later that I had seen almost all of the band members walking around on the street earlier and slapped myself for the missed opportunity. They started playing a song that I can only imagine is named "baby" or something of that sort because often during the chorus band members would stop playing their various instruments to spell "b-a-b-y" with their arms. it was very ymca. And mind you, these various instruments included guitars, drums, keyboards, saxophones, a banjo, claves, and a clarinet. Yeah, their sound was pretty all over the place.

It was pretty fun dance-type music and the band had a lot of energy. There was only one girl dancing and at one point, one of the women came to the edge of the stage and thanked her for it. The songs were great. The sound kind of exploded from the stage, and it was pretty hard to judge just hearing it for the first time - I'd like to hear a recording because I think it would be pretty good. I felt bad because between the loud sound level and the crazy sound explosion that was happening, I had a hard time getting through their accents and understanding their inbetween banter. from what I heard, it was very nice and somewhat funny. Around the last song, I was fading a little bit - but oh, the Brunettes were ready for that. They had a slight pause during their last song in which almost all the band members turned around to put something on and one of the singers sang "mary kate and ashley..." Of course the whole audience laughed, but we had no idea that while he was singing, the other members were actually putting on mary-kate and ashley masks.

The picture was taken from their full house days and all the eyes were cut out so the band members could see. I was cracking up. I was laughing so hard it was probably alarming to the people around me. Also on stage for this part (complete with masks) were Marty and Neal from the Shins. at one point they put the masks together so it looked like they were kissing. Allinall? fun and hilarious.

As the Brunettes left the stage, the guys in front of us took their last swigs of "water" and coke and after talking to each other for a while, turned to me and said, "hey, do you have a lighter?" after I said I didn't they asked a bunch of other people and some guy next to them ended up having some matches. Their reaction? They pull out a gigantic ziploc bag with 2 microscopic joints in them, pull one out, light it, and start smoking it in front of all of the roadies. Everyone in the crowd around us was looking at them too, as they let all the smoke escape and hacked furiously after almost every hit.

This event caused me to laugh much more.

After some waiting, The Shins came out. They opened smashingly with "Caring is Creepy," though James' vocals were a little low. The sound got better and the first part of the show was enjoyable. I have to say though, the show didn't really start for me until "New Slang." Not because that's my favorite song (it's not), but because they really didn't show very much other than good music up to that point. I mean, it's great when bands play shows really well, but I wouldn't pay 25 dollars to see what I could hear at home. When New Slang started, the background behind the band turned into something mirroring the sky, a curtain with white lights. Also, the band started to talk more around that time. Marty is absolutely great. He seems like the heart of the band (in terms of the performance anyway) and he never stopped having fun. After.. new slang, I think it was, someone threw flowers on stage, so Marty took some flowers out and put them behind all of the band members ears. He pranced around stage and was just generally awesome, and I can safetly say that if it weren't for him, I wouldn't have enjoyed the show as much. They made us wait a while for the encore, but it was all well worth it.

set list (the end was a bit ripped off, so I had to write in "so says I"):


My final feeling about this show, even though it was great, was that it would have been even better at the Bowery. The Brunettes were funny and quirky - almost an arcade fire unicorns kind of thing that would have been so much better in a smaller venue. Also, the Shins were fantastic, but it would have been even better if that energy were contained in a space like the Bowery. But really, if you have an opportunity to catch either of these guys, do it! It's worth it. (even the $25.)

More pictures ala my webshots. (the one with marty and neal is in the entry below)

I SAW WHO?

I am completely and totally wiped.

why wiped, you ask?


maybe it's because I SAW THE SHINS TONIGHT.

yes. by some kind of fluke, I got tickets this morning for a show that's been sold out for at least a month. well, not a fluke.. but a well orchestrated ticket release program that allowed me to purchase some tickets in my insomnia driven state after my radio show today.

Since I am so tired (and I have a test tomorrow) the big wonderful review will come (complete with my own pictures) of both the brunettes and the shins a bit later. But since I spoil you, I will let you have a little taste..

notice anything unusual?




I've also decided that even though I still don't have my friend's pictures from Bloc Party, I'm going to do a review! so wait for that. you know, it'll only be like... 18 days late.

GET UP EARLY ON SUNDAYS

uh, yeah so if you're awake right now, go to www.wbar.org and listen to the redwalls. I found the new cd at the station and since no djs came after me, I put it on repeat. It doesn't come out til june, but if you're awake, you can listen to it right now.

It's pretty damn good.

if you miss this, you might be able to catch the first few minutes of the cd at the end of my archived show.

well, off for another interesting day of homework and eating!

oh - and p(i)s(s) - the new weezer cd's leaked. I got the first couple of songs, and as bad as beverly hills is.. the rest is not bad. It's very cute. you know, typical new weezer boppy head kinda stuff. alas, gone are the days of blue and pinkerton... but at least the whole cd doesn't sound like beverly hills. go to matt's page to get the link.

see yas.

PREFROSH & HOMEWORK

As it has been a little bit since a real entry, I'll bite the bullet and write one now. So, no - I did not end up going to see that brilliant show at CBGBs and I very much regret it. In addition to feeling weird head pounding, my friend backed out on me, so I really didn't want to go alone. Because let's face it... unless the concert is really, really good and you're really into the band (ex. I would go see the Strokes alone anyday) or the people are crazy friendly and really nice (the Arcade Fire), going to concerts alone sucks. No matter how good the bands are.

So instead I did something that must not have been very eventful because I have no recollection of what it was. I spent most of the weekend trying to write these two papers that I had to turn into today, one spanish composition and one lit hum essay. Managed to pound them both out in less than 24 hours at weird intervals on saturday night/sunday morning. Stayed up writing until my show, played some tunes, and then came back here. The show was pretty tame considering I planned it all into my ipod before hand. Funny thing? Even though the show was virtually idiot proof, I still made mistakes. story of my life. The show was also made managable by conversation via aim with Matt. crazily enough we have almost the same air time on sunday mornings! talk about coincidences. He runs a wonderful audioblog that you should all check out...

anyway. I walked back to the dorm. crashed. picked up prefrosh, wrote composition. sketchiness ensued.

My prefrosh pretty much ditched me, choosing instead to do the activities scheduled for them (lame!). Well, no. not lame. they're supposed to do stuff like that, and it was actually nice not having to entertain them all the time. they were good people and I enjoyed hosting them. Other prefrosh? Sketchy! There was tons of drunkness happening. There was some kegger on 4 and a bunch of other party type things going on, but truthfully, none of that stuff really ever happens here. I don't exactly know because I was doing my homework, but the stories I heard today were... interesting. How interesting? Well, let's say they included throwing up, lapdances, a british guy, and a livejournal pajama party (yeah, i'm confused too). The coolest story I heard (by far) was that one of the prefrosh kids was the son in Gladiator. that's pretty freakin cool.

There was a pretty large population of ED kids here which made me really happy... and don't get me wrong, only a percentage of the prefrosh were really sketchy. A few of them I really liked and would be friends with if that kind of thing happened here. too bad it doesn't.

As I plan to party this week (no class tomorrow or thursday!), stay tuned for some interesting 1st person prefrosh narratives. it'll be interesting, if anything.

promising to be more interesting later,

adrienne

ps. you can hear the new white stripes single at matt's blog... it's... different. still rocks out though. listen and form your own opinion!

pps. I just realized that because of my early start on sunday, the archive cuts off my show! boo. so just listen to another week I guess? yeah.

PAPER WRITING AND MY SLOWLY DECAYING MIND

Essay #1 - HALF WAY DONE!

yeah!

In other news... well... nothing! I've been trying to get this paper done all night. I am getting 2 prefrosh tomorrow, so that should be interesting. What should I do with them? Of course, there's always the option of leaving them in a dark alley by the bridge and letting them find their way back...... just kidding.

some useful knowledge -

TIPS FOR PAPER WRITING AT 4AM:

• do not listen to "Quiet is the New Loud" OR "Love is Hell" either part.
• keep some lights on
• don't drink a bunch of water
• if you can't spell words like "unessecary" go to bed
• don't not believe what you're writing in. it will only make you more confused

and finally:

• don't write papers at 4am!

BLOC PARTY

so I know I'm not supposed to use this picture without permission from One Louder , but I'm not doing anything bad or commercial... and I only want it because I can see my head! see the Camera? look to the left - that's my head! so, uh.. just go visit One Louder and everything will be fine. I hope.


anyway! so BLOC PARTY it is.
(this will be backdated soon because it is sooo old)

the night started well - the opening acts (respectively) were Chromeo and The Ponys. I had no idea what to expect of Chromeo... I had seen some videos of people rollerskating to chromeo, but that was about it. WELL! Turns out that Chromeo is made of 2 fantastic people as well as a sometimes drummer. The Guitar player teaches french here and the other guy spends a lot of his time with a tube in his mouth inviting individual people to dance by pointing at them.

The Bowery was basically empty when Chromeo started, but it filled up slowly and steadily. Chromeo's pretty fun disco/funk music that commands people to at least smile, if not laugh and dance. Because of the guitar players connections to Columbia the place was crawling with classmates. Many of whom were in his class. How awesome is that? I'd like my teacher to take me to his concert. Anyway. Chromeo's cool. In the words of the drunk guy, "Chrooomeooo! FUCK YEAH!" I've seen him around campus a few times since then and I still can't get that drunk guy's voice out of my head. Uh yeah. So if you see Chromeo somewhere near you, do yourself a favor - take a couple of shots and then head down there. It'll be loads of fun.

After a little wait on came the Ponys. I'd heard good word of mouth about these guys, so I was expecting a good show. When I heard the guitars start I even told my friend, "wow, I think this is going to be amazing." But it wasn't. The performance was actually very boring. I wanted to like it, I did. The music was good. I think if I had closed my eyes and sat underneath the stage I would have thought, "yeah, this is pretty good." But the performance did nothing for me. The band members all seemed nice and the music was good, but after the engaging funk of Chromeo, this band really brought nothing to the table. Honestly though, if I had a choice to buy the album I would. It was good music. They just need to work on the performance.

The Ponys exited and then came the moment of truth. I feel that I should open this nice review/summary of Bloc Party with a statement about the hype that has gotten everyone so worked up... I'd like to present to you a conversation that I had with a high school student in between sets at the Shins show:

Student (with hands over face): ahhh! I'm so excited! I can't contain myself!
Me (shouting over music): yeah I know! haha don't worry about it - I went to see Bloc Party a few weeks ago and I was literally shrieking when they came on stage!
Student: Who?
Me: Bloc Party!
Student: Never heard of em.

psssshhh. I wasn't even going to touch that one.

Though this kid apparently lives under a rock, everyone at the Bloc Party show knew them. And loved them. Oh, and the part about me shrieking when they came on stage? Yeah I wasn't joking. I'd loved these guys for so long, I was freaking out. My friend laughed at me and the guy next to me probably thought I was the biggest freak, but you know, whatever.

So the guys come out and open smashingly with "Banquet." The crowd went insane. I was right against the stage and was pushed many times. I think the crowd was collectively engaging in some kind of dance pushing movement. After they finished the song Gordy told us - "You guys are officially better than last night." I'm not sure what made thursday night so lame, but I think it might have been the high presence of skeptics and reviewers cause it seemed like everyone on friday was a major fan. Towards the beginning of the show someone commented that it wasn't very loud. Kele was like, "It isn't very loud? Make it louder!" And oh, they listened. It was loud. It was really, really loud. I feared for my ears. I kid you not.
So they played some more songs and I loved every one. The banter in between the songs was great too. The crazy drummer took off his shirt early in the set and reminded us that "our prince got married today!" Kele also asked if Chris from craiglist was there, and even though I didn't know what he was talking about then, I later found the ad that went something like this:

I will bone you for a ticket to Bloc Party tonight! - $25

---

Reply to: [redacted]
Date: 2005-04-08, 2:44PM EDT


Attention hot hipster chicks with tickets to the Bloc Party show:

I will bone you for a ticket. This is not a joke

In addition to the awesome boning, I also will give you face value for your ticket and buy you as many cans of pabst blue ribbon that you can drink. As if the cash, beer and boning wasn't enough, I will stand next to you and sing ALL of the lyrics to ALL of their songs. If you're hot enough, you can even pretend to be my girlfriend for the rest of the night.

Let me reiterate: The first hot hipster chick to give me a ticket to Bloc Party TONIGHT gets the following:

Cash (Face Value)
Bottomless Can of PBR
Me singing
1 Boning (This could potentially lead to more bonings in the future)

Thank you,

Chris

ps- I will also request "This Modern Love" and sing you the words, as a post-boning show of my gratitude for the ticket.

• this is in or around boning

I emailed the guy a few days later telling him that he was asked for by Kele and general stuff about the show. I also told him about the shows at Webster Hall - let's hope he got a ticket. (it's sold out now.)

Overall, the show was amazing. I kicked myself all year for missing them in the fall, but this show was well worth the wait. They are all kickass musicians and the british thing doesn't hurt either. It's just sad to think that that was probably the last time I'll be able to see them in a venue that small. Towards the end of the show Kele told us about Webster Hall and lots of people booed. He asked us what was wrong with webster hall and some guy shouted "it sucks!" Kele said, "well where should we play then?" and this guy said "CBGBs!" Of course that made everyone laugh, including Kele. He said "Here that Vice Records!? CBGBs." Too bad nothing like that will ever happen. Oh well, let me not get sad - the show was excellent!

the set list:


the setlist I got was not one that was actually put on stage because of the correction. but that doesn't really matter to me!

sorry it took so long!

REGINA SPEKTOR

backdated regina spektor, for your pleasure!

REGINA SPEKTOR PLAYED FOR 2.5 HOURS.

I had the honor of attending the (Sold Out) concert at the Bowery (also my fav. concert venue and almost second home) on the 30th. I was going with a girl that I knew, but she had to come a little bit later, so I got there early to get a good place. Well, the doors opened like 30 minutes later than they said they would. The waiting area/ bar downstairs was totally packed. They finally got us in and I got a pretty good spot a little to the right of the center. I look around me and who is there, but another Columbia student. She lives on 7 (in my dorm). So I made a new friend. We saw Yoko Ono in the balcony about 10ft. up from where we were so that was cool. Looked around for the Strokes all night, but no such luck. Sean Lennon came out after a while and performed a (surprisingly) short set. I'd never heard any of his stuff, but it was actually pretty good. He looks strikingly like both of his parents, and has a good song writing capability. He also talks a lot. But most of it's pretty awkwardly funny, so he was entertaining. He played with another guitarist and pianist. He also played guitar and his last song was a solo piano number. His songs are good. He plays well. He sings well. It was very good altogether and probably one of the better opening acts I've seen. I'm not sure that he plays many shows or puts out many albums, so it was a treat to see him.

He left and then they set up the stage for Regina. Much to my chagrin, they put the piano in the middle of the stage, completely blocking the view of 65-70% of the audience on the floor. After a pretty long wait (considering how packed it was - even for Sean Lennon's set) Regina came out of the side door and smiled. I think she was happy to see that many people there... later she told us that she was afraid that it would be like a birthday party that everyone's invited to, but no one goes to. We all laughed.

For being so powerful, she really is a delicate person. She's very small and her personality is very cute. She started playing some songs with two guys playing bass (electric and upright) and then switched to just solo voice and solo piano songs. I never realized how much of a jazz singer she is, but a lot of the acapella songs she has show the (really amazing) quality of her voice. She kept her set list in a little notebook, only glancing at it occasionally. After a while she asked us how long she had been playing. She said that she had no idea, that she had just been playing her songs. Someone shouted out "it's 9:00!" which, of course, was a complete lie seeing as Sean Lennon didn't take the stage until a little after nine. Her response to that was "oh, you guys are tricky!" I heard a guy next to me mumble "9 - maybe on the west coast." I looked at my cell phone and suddenly realized that it was 12:06. She had taken the stage sometime in the hour of 10.

She played some more songs, some from Soviet Kitsch, but most from older albums. After a while she listened to what people were shouting and played the requests. Once during a song she messed up the piano part and said "hey, you asked for it!" After a while some other guys came out and answered my question of why there were multiple guitars and a drum set on stage - she played "Your Honor" live with a band (apparently for the first time ever) Regina was really excited to sing it live, and even more excited when it finished. She left the stage a few songs later, only to come out for an encore. She yelled at us. "I just found out that I played for 2 hours and 15 minutes! You tricked me! What the fuck?!" But of course she was smiling. She had to be happy about it. She was headlining at the Bowery for goodnesssake! She played about 2 or 3 songs for the encore. She refused Chemo Limo (which I expected, but was still disappointed) and she ended playing 2 songs on the guitar, and the medium switch was pretty cool.

Overall, it was a wonderfully serene experience. It was like floating on a cloud. I came back to school (about 130 am) and I didn't want to do any work. I just wanted to lay down and smile. Or hug someone. the concert was so pleasing. Unfortunately, a lot of people had to leave the concert early. A lot of the fans were from out of town and they had to catch trains and such. I also know that a lot of people's legs hurt (mine did too) but it was totally worth staying until the end. If you can catch her show, please do. Both she and I would be happy about it. And of course you would be happy about it, too.

The only flaw that I could find with the concert (that I think ended up being about 4.5 hours -half of which was just Regina playing) was that during her set she didn't mix the songs very well. She played tons of old stuff and there would be a block of old stuff, followed by a block of SK, etc. There wasn't much of a mix going on, which is a bit hard if you don't know all of her songs. Of course, they were all amazing, but there's definitely something to say about the concerts that you know every other song and the concert where you only know a song in every handful of songs.

Other than that, perfect! I'll definitely try to catch her again. And sorry it took me this long to write about it.

some more random pictures:

I know this one's blurry, but doesn't he look just like his dad?

Thanks to the great concertgoers that made these pictures possible:

BEN KWELLER/WALKMEN

so I back dated a couple of my old concerts.. enjoy!

So if you know me then you probably know who Maximo Park are (since I might go all of 2 hours without talking about or listening to them), but if you don't know them (or me) I highly suggest you do! The more I listen to them, the more I really don't understand why they don't have people following them around yet! well. maybe it's because they're album isn't out. I'm pretty sure it's leaked somewhere (these things always do) but take my advice and buy it when it comes out (late may). It's excellent. I play the cd over and over and over and I still dance. After coming home from Regina, I was listening to it on my ipod and I wanted to break out in some kind of spastic dance... it's compelling dance music, folks. Undeniably.

But anyway! on to my next subject - music! wait. that's not really a change of subject, is it? I've avoided actually describing the concerts that I've been to this past week but now I'm forcing myself. So buckle up people!

Monday was (link extravangza!) the Features/Ben Kweller/the Walkmen:

What was supposed to be Marla, Cate and me then turned into me and Neal. So Neal and I headed over to the concert.. except we didn't really know where we're going. and it was raining. We went the wrong way a bit - I stopped everyone on the street asking where irving is (I've never been to irving plaza before) and we finally get there. Soaking wet.

the Features had already started playing, so we rushed upstairs. They had some sound problems, which was a bit distracting. The Features are so huge when you listen to the recording that at first I was a little disappointed. But then they fixed the sound problem, and then I was good. they sounded much better - and their songs are catchy too! Their playing style reminded me a bit of the blueskins, but in all honesty the blueskins rocked so much harder when I saw them a few weeks ago. They are damnnn good.

but anyway. the Features played really well and have really good and catchy songs. support them.

Next was Ben Kweller. I was never a Ben Kweller fan, but I figured - hey, maybe I'll actually like it now; my musical tastes have shifted a lot since high school. He came on in a sweater with the rest of his band. He's very funny. Most of his mic breaks in between songs were, "Wa! Ha! Hee! HuA! yeah!" Yup, BK is definitely a cool kid. Oh and did I mention that he was awesome? Because he was. The songs were so good; I even contemplated spending my last dime of the month buying a record. Sometimes I would think, "I want the cd that song is on!" He and the band did a bunch of jamming in the middle of songs and they would huddle in a circle around the drummer, and just play. Ben also jumped around - he seems like a really cool guy. He ended his set with "No Reason" and I decided then that I love that song. I am now a fan. OOPs! I forgot to mention it when I first wrote this, but about half way into his set, Ben brought out a Evan Dando (you probably know him from the lemonheads) and they sang "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" together. It was cool. Evan Dando is really big.

End opinion: Ben Kweller and his performance -- the coolest of the awesome. (ha. those are probably the worst adjectives to use, but I think you can get the idea)

then the Walkmen came on. I saw them once during orientation at this outdoor concert sponsored by Columbia and the sound was awful. They also seemed a bit peeved. I thought it was due to the lackluster students standing around, but it turns out that's just how they perform. I went into it thinking, "well maybe this one will be better." But to be honest... it wasn't. It was really crowded and I was very uncomfortable. I had to tilt my head a lot to see anything really, and the Walkmen were just not into it at all. They played with the attitude of a band that's like "oh yeah well we make some good music I think so whatever I think maybe we'll play some or one or you know, music, you're here for that right?" seriously. if they had actually said anything during the concert, I'm sure that would have been it.

So they did play some songs. the first one blew really hard. Something about lemons or limes or something. There were a couple of songs that I liked. "The Rat" of course (which sounds infinitely better than it did in august), "Bows & Arrows" and whatever song was their last song or encore... did they do an encore? well anyway, the last song was awesome.

All and all: I am not a Walkmen fan. they play some good songs, so maybe I'll listen to those. If you like them a lot, more power to you.

Unfortunately, their very unhappy performance and the endless dentyne adds shoved in our faces (the concert was $5 for a reason) made the concert not bad, but not the greatest. First two acts were good good though.

well now I'm tired.. regina spektor tomorrow!