Andrew Bird w/ Eugene Mirman, The Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN - 3/19/2012

We met up with friends and pre-partied for this one at Fleet St Pub in Printers Alley, which continue to impress me time and time again. I highly recommend the Hatton Cross Hot Hen and the fish and chips, of course.

We got into the Ryman in time to see Eugene Mirman, whom I met back in 2004 when he opened for Modest Mouse:

He's gotten a good deal more famous since then to be sure, and his act was good. Not the greatest, funniest thing ever, but it was fun and smart.

Andrew Bird, on the other hand, just didn't really turn my crank this time around. He's certainly beyond talented and has some fine material, but this felt very dialed in to me. He played some classics during the set ("Measuring Cups," "Plasticities" [which he totally flubbed]) and closed out with "Tables and Chairs" and "Fake Palindromes," but it was just a very meh show for me. We left after the main set, and I hear that he played quite the slew of encores, so maybe I missed the best part. Having seen him many times over the years, though, this was probably the least memorable performance I've witnessed.