Modest Mouse, Balch Fieldhouse, Boulder, CO - 2/28/09

After some very exhausting (and awesome) skiing at Keystone and Beaver Creek, our posse forced ourselves to go see Modest Mouse in Boulder. We dined at a most excellent pizza joint between the mountains and Denver off I-70, Beau Jo's, followed by a quick change in Denver and then on to the show. Doors were at 8 with opening act Mimicking Birds, so we thought arriving at 9 or so would be perfect. Wrong ... the openers hadn't even played yet, so we had about 2 hours of standing around before the Mouse. And again ... we were super friggin' tired.

The biggest nuisance in all this was that MM took at least 45 minutes to take the stage after the openers. People even started booing at one point. They played a cool set, though, with a ton of old songs. They were pretty sloppy, though, and the sound (an old field house that held about 4,000) was pretty awful, too. A lot of long, going-nowhere-fast outros to songs, too ... like "Dramamine" could've been about 4 minutes shorter and about 10x better. It was kind of a 180 from the nuance of the Andrew Bird show 2 days earlier. You gotta love the setlist, though ...

Start 10:15

Paper Thin Walls
Never Ending Math Equation (!)
The View
Dramamine (!!)
The Good Time Are Killing Me
Doin' the Cockroach (!!!)
Fire It Up
We've Got Everything
Satin in a Coffin (during which he made a hippie from the crowd jog in place ... funny)
Float On
Trucker's Atlas (!!!!)
Ohio
Broke (!!!!! - totally flubbed the lyrics, though)
Trailer Trash (!!!!!!)
Education

Off 11:45

We did not stay for the encore ... good times killing us, I suppose ... but, according to the good ol' web, they played:

Satellite Skin
Black Cadillacs
This Devil's Workday
Custom Concern

At least I didn't miss "Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset" or the return of "3rd Planet" ...

Andrew Bird, Ogden Theater, Denver, CO - 2/26/2009

After an amazing few days hiking/camping/rock climbing in Joshua Tree National Park (as well documented here ... thanks, Aaron), I found myself meeting up with my girlfriend in Denver, where we stayed with an old med school buddy and his wife for some hangtime and skiing. Luckily, we were able to see Andrew Bird play a sold out (small!!!) club (capacity around 850) in Denver.

We started the night with some yummy sushi at Hana, which had some cool offerings. We then headed over to the show and completely missed the opener, Loney, Dear. (This may be unfair, but fine by me.)

So the show started around 9:15 and ran until 11:00. They sounded great, with Andrew doing the solo thing to start with (2 songs) followed by Dosh and the rest of the band joining in. Just crazy good. All of them are fantastic musicians, of course, and they sounded tight as hell. Biggest issue for me was a setlist that was a bit heavy on new songs, but by the end ... well, just check out the last bit of the show. I wanted to cry during "Tables and Chairs" ... it was fantastic. "Armchairs" was also killer. A high bar as far as 2009 shows go, but there are some great ones to come, so we'll see ...

Instrumental
Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning (traditional)
Masterswarm
Opposite Day
Fitz and Dizzyspells
Natural Disaster
Effigy
Oh No
Plasticities
Not a Robot, But a Ghost
Armchairs
Anonanimal
Tenuousness
Imitosis
"Dr. Strings" (silly quick tune)
Fake Palindromes
***e1***
"Easy Going" (bluesy, solo Bird number)
MX Missles (just Bird and Dosh)
Tables and Chairs

Times New Viking (Hearts the Velvets), Wexner Center Black Box, Columbus, OH - 2/14/2009

Haven't posted in a while (work/travel) or seen shows in a while (winter), but then had a run here recently. First was this TNV show on Valentine's Day. Had spent the previous night having an exquisite tasting menu at Rosendale's and then pre-show saw the classic Hitchcock flick Vertigo followed by a 90-Minute IPA at Mad Mex.

We got to the show around 10, and TNV was already into their set. (Shockingly, to me.) And it just wasn't that great. It wasn't terrible by any stretch, but it was just kind of off. A couple folks guested, including Ron House of Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments and someone playing violin. It's hard to pin down what exactly was "off" about it, but it never clicked for me. Wish I had more to say about this ...

Partial setlist (from when I came in) ...

Can't Stand It
Heroin (at this point, I realized just how late we were to the show)
Pale Blue Eyes
Here She Comes Now
Femme Fatale
After Hours