They changed up ALL the songs. Nothing really sounded like it did on the albums, and it was awesome. It was sort of like, not really like another band covering them, but like a tribute band whose love for the music and sheer joy of playing songs that they know have already stood the test of time, songs that slay (as it were), has allowed them to actually rise above the band whose songs they are playing. When the tribute outstrips the tribute-e. Have you ever seen a band like that? Me neither. But what I saw tonight is as close as I think I’ll come to that kind of allegorical weirdness. Listening to the albums now just sounds dry by comparison.

There were some crazy sonicscapes…at least two times I lost track of my brain for a few moments, like I was high. It sounds like I’m being melodramatic I know, honesty is stupid like that sometimes. At one point the singer recorded himself beat boxing, then recorded himself whistling, then had those two looping for the rest of the song – and it kicked ass! There was only one point where I thought the experiments mildly misfired – the opened one of the songs with an electronic metronome type sound, and it was really loud and annoying until the rest of the volume kicked in, and then at that point it blended nicely.

Also, they were filming some kind of tour video too…so there is a minute chance we will show up in the far background of a half a second scene in there! At one point the camera man crowd surfed on his back out to the edge of the crowd & back, all while filming. You don’t see too much crowd surfing anymore, especially in a club like that, so I was surprised.

Oh, what about the shut the fuck up bit you ask? The chick one chick over from me(probably about 4 feet), for at minimum 30 minutes and at maximum the length of the set (about an hour) yelled at her friend (who was right next to her) at such a volume that I, with earplugs, heard her over the music. And keep in mind that this is INCESSANT. In between songs, during songs, the whole fucking time. It’s like the pastor’s senile grandfather masturbating in church…no one is going say anything about the elephant with diarrhea in the room making it smell like morbid ass for everyone else. So, I don’t know, it’s not like me at all, but during the 2nd of 3 encore songs I just snapped and yelled at her to “Please shut the fuck up!” I said something too about how I couldn’t believe how loud she was or something too, I can’t really recall. I was going to put a picture up here of her (if it came out), and say all kinds of mean things but, after being all appalled and bitchy when I said it, she for some reason decided to apologize to me after the show. Which was, very gracious. Not that my outburst wasn’t at all warranted (because it was, although I could have asked nice…but like I said I was music-high, not quite thinking straight and hating to be constantly pulled out of the mood by her fucking yapping), but hey most people would just stay bitchy and not have the stones to suck it and apologize. So kudos to her. Sort of. She said the reason for her volume was that she hadn’t see her friend in 13 years.

Hint: Don’t choose a concert as the staging point for your 13 year reunion. Try like, a coffee shop, or a bar, or a restaurant? Or, if you actually like the person, maybe even your house!

Oh, and Portland is full of ugly people. Or girls at least. Man, I really don’t think any place in California was this bad…I’m sooo glad I’m not single up here. Although I’m sure there must be attractive girls out there somewhere….? I saw lots of C’s & D-’s dolled up like they were B+’s. Sorry girls, no points for effort on the final.

Here’s a shot of the wee scene:

It was nice and cozy though, and we were very close. The sound wasn’t as bad as it could have been – instruments were great (because it was raw from the amps), but vocals got lost a little in the mix due to running through the places tiny PA system.

Here’s Jason:

Always great to see them but they, as pretty much any touring band, pretty much played stuff off the newer albums. “I Drive a Lot” is as far back as he went. It was great, it was $8, how can I complain?

Oh right, the opening band. Not to be mean to the guys or anything…but you aren’t anything special, don’t bother with music, really. They were knit well instrumentation wise, but the singer still hadn’t learned how not to look at his chording hand after every single line he sang, or write melodies that didn’t exactly match what he was playing. Very 10th grade, maybe 7th. Oh, and the name “Lucid Onset”…seriously that’s like jinxing yourself to start with. Like waking up in the morning and stabbing yourself in the eye with your toothbrush and then continuing blithely on, brushing your teeth with your eyeball. In the world of bad band names, there is a sub genre of bad Christian band names whose members are truly embarrassing. In a vain attempt to capture some kind of deep statement about their religion and portray it in a way that shows they are really cool, many godbands just make themselves look dumb. Case in point.

The next “band” was Northern State…which was, well, interesting. Directly from their bio “admittedly, the three white, suburban-raised women did not fit the standard rapper profile”. Yeah, so 3 white chicks from NY jumping around and rhyming, I don’t know if it qualified as rap or not I’m not qualified to judge, but they get an A- for effort (entirely too much wrist slashing (like..that motion you make with a turn table, but without the turn table)) – it must be hard to be 3 average white chicks (1 looked like a pudgy hippy, another was a short girl who could be your cousin (if you had white rapping chicks for cousins) and the last was tall and thin and really screechy) rapping. I know I wouldn’t have the balls to get up there and do what they did. I probably wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror afterwards either. Anyway, make up your own mind – there are music and video clips on their website. Hint: They do NOT look like the photos in real life ;)

On to the meat of the show – T&S! They were great, nice and friendly and chatty, although I thought Tegan was going to be cranky at first. There was some kind of issue with one of her guitars and the guitar tech came out and fucked with it (before the band came on) at least (I kid you not) 9 times before finally giving up. Sara’s mic also went out (kept fuzzing out whenever she raised her voice) at the end right as she started into the encore opener (a cover of Dancing in the Dark), but props to her for singing right over it. So yeah, they played mostly new stuff, so I was slightly bummed, but all the new stuff is good too. :). They played one song I didn’t recognize, but I suspect it was a new one since no one else really recog’d it either. I’m sure I’d have a wittier review if I wasn’t so tired, but I don’t.

The opening band was the God Awfuls and their name pretty much says it all. I mean, they were decent musicians and all, but all their music put across was prententious high school rockers trying too hard to write causehead songs. I didn’t get the feeling they really felt anything they were playing. That and the lead singer was wearing those trendy mod-CHICK platform shoes. Mmmm kay.

Tiger Army rocked the goddam house, as usual. Tiger Army is basically just Nick 13, but its nice to see the new guys (both drummer & bassist have swapped since last I saw them) can hold their own. I’m not sure who the new drummer is, he definitely wasn’t Fred Hell..oh wait..website says his name is James Meza, and the new bassist is Jeff Roffredo. Both of them were definitely up to snuff but, to me, no one is going to compare to Kresge until I see them STAND ON THEIR FUCKING STAND UP BASS WHILE PLAYING IT. Seriously, that was about the sickest shit I have ever seen done with a bass, I will forever be envious.

Tangent: While the latest album left me a little let down, the new songs came through pretty well live. Tiger Army is a very theme-oriented band, and thus some of the lyrics come out rather cliche, in the past murderously tight musicianship picked up the slack, but on TA III, I felt that some of the cliches were much more obvious and, due to a weaker mix or something, were really noticeably so. Not a bad album for any band by any means, but the weakest showing for TA yet.

Social D was still in top musical form, although Mike is definitely showing his age, physically. He’s only 42 (I think), but is showing signs of wear and tear. Then again, he’s lived the life. This was an all new social D lineup (I think) as well since last I saw them (1998), but they were kicking some serious ass. There were the usual asswipes at the show, but hey, thats what you pay for right? :P

I picked up the new CD too – I’m so out of the loop I don’t even know when my favorite bands put out new stuff – they played about 6 new songs at the show and they all sounded great, so I’ve got high hopes.