Skip to main content

Day Two Hundred Sixty Two (Year Two)

There's so very much to write about today, but I'll pick this as a starting point:


There's the setlist from Fun.'s portion of the concert last night.  Also, I'll say right off the top that Nate Ruess, Fun.'s lead singer (and former lead singer of The Format) has an AMAZING voice.  I knew going into the show, or thought I knew that Some Nights had traces of auto-tune on it, but after seeing them live last night, from what was literally a foot from where he was, I can honestly say that he needs no studio trickery whatsoever.

The other somewhat odd thing that struck me last night: you could very much tell that the tour was booked well in advance of the runaway success of Some Nights, because I saw them in a venue that was roughly twice the size of my living room, and I have a feeling that the next time through, they'll be playing the Main Lounge on campus in Iowa City, if not the Ballroom.  They are very clearly on their way up the ladder of success, and it won't be long before gigs that intimate are a distant memory for this band.

Musically, they were tight too.  It was cool to be able to hear their songs and recognize them in slightly stripped down form for the live show, because, as a fan, it showed me where they used the studio to their advantage for musical embellishments.  The set was compact, focused, and sprinkled with all of the songs the crowd came to hear.  Granted, when you've only got two albums worth of material, that's an easier feat to accomplish, but still.  I was also impressed that the college kids (who could well have been bandwagon hoppers) knew all of the lyrics to the first record (2009's Aim & Ignite) as well as all the new stuff.

Got to go in when the family members did, to boot (Nate was born in Iowa City), so we got the prime location closest to the stage. 

Sleeper Agent, the band that opened for Fun. was pretty awesome too.  In fact, I heard that a great number of the people trying to get tickets to this very sold out show on Craigslist were rabid Sleeper Agent fans.  The band is based out of Bowling Green, Kentucky, and put forth a solid mixture of classic chord progressions and punky energy.  While a great number of their songs seemed to be written in the key of A, they all managed to have their own feel and their own sense of drive.  If I had to pick a calling card for the band, however, it would be the presence of dual lead singers, one male, one female, who passed the vocals back and forth at least once in every song.  It made for a really cool dynamic.  Solid songs, though, overall.  Sleeper Agent is definitely a band I will keep an eye on as they go.  Hearing their songs made me want to know what they will do for their next record, which feels like it might be a giant leap forward for them.  Interestingly enough, their first record was only $5 at the gig, and the whole band signed it, so that was cool.

Okay, now it's on to the rest of today's music news...

The story that would have been my lead bit of news on any other day but a post concert day is this:  Counting Crows (one of my favorite bands of all time) released their first studio record in 4 years today!  It's an album of covers called Underwater Sunshine... or what we did on our summer vacation.  Long title, I know.  Haven't had a chance to listen all the way through yet, of course, but I checked out a track on the way home from work, and they definitely sound better on a stereo (even on a car stereo) than they did when I streamed a few of the tracks over the internet the other day.

Picked up Boys & Girls by Alabama Shakes tonight as well.  They've gotten so much hype in the last few months, on NPR in particular, that I was sucked in.  Their vocalist,  Brittany Howard, has drawn some well deserved comparisons to Janis Joplin.

I'll be able to write more on this once I've listened through to both their record and the new Crows disc.

The only other thing I need to touch on tonight is that the cables I picked up yesterday at Guitar Center were exactly what I needed to connect the guitar trainer to my recording gear.  I figured that out this morning before work, and though it took me a second to figure out how to access the auxiliary features of my recording gear, I got that squared away quickly enough.  Having that out of the way frees me up to really make excellent use of that piece of equipment that has been crying out for years for me to make use of it. 

Good stuff all the way around!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dat Two Hundred Thirty One (Year Three)

So, apparently the new Airborne EP that came out yesterday is MP3 only!  Downloaded that as soon as I figured it out this morning, but didn't have time to sync the ipod after doing so.  Therefore, I naturally had a ton of time to listen tonight that was away from my computer. On the plus side, though, I was able to spend some of that extra time with a guitar in my hands, working on the chord progression for this month's song.  I've got an opening chord change that I really like, and the flicker of a two guitar approach, with one of the two parts capoed up the neck dancing somewhere in the back of my brain.  If all goes according to plan, it could work out really well. Also, finally over halfway in the Grohl bio.  Considering I was hardly home at all today, I feel like I got a decent chunk of that read. Tomorrow should (hopefully) be another decent day for music, with a chance to play in the evening, and enough time for a few runs through the Airborne EP....

Day Two Hundred Twenty Seven (Year Two)

So, the new Springsteen disc is amazing.  There's enough of a mixture of his upbeat rockers, his ballads, and his message songs to make this his best record since The Rising .  And speaking of that record... Buying The Boss the day it comes out always takes me back to a specific moment in life.  It was July 30th, 2002, the year after 9/11, the year after someone on the streets of New York told Springsteen "we need you now."  I had driven to Oshkosh, WI to visit some friends, when I remembered that Springsteen's disc was scheduled to come out that day.  I drove downtown to The Exclusive Company, but had to park a few blocks back.  At the time, there wasn't much going on downtown, but when I got out of the car, I could hear this music coming from up the block somewhere.  The closer I got to Exclusive, the more it began to dawn on me, they had set up a giant set of speakers in their upstairs windows, and were blasting the new album out into the streets....

Day One Hundred Forty Two

So, I haven't been sleeping much lately, and I've been staying up late. listening to music, doing a bit of playing, and watching old episodes of Behind The Music on the internet. It's funny, you know, because I never met the rest of my "band," I've become the critic. It's all right, don't get me wrong, but for a decade now I've always hoped that I'd find a way to release something. It'll happen, I know it will, but it's continually happened slower than I expected it to. I've gotten close to getting something released, as I've documented before here before, but with the winter coming and the cold closing in, I'm facing another chance to make something musical of the winter. I'm going to start by finishing up the old things that have gotten pushed to the sides in the last few months. With the buildup of everything since the summer, it should be easier. Even if all I do is spend the winter writing lyrics, trying to g...