I broke my no-shows-before-my-show rule last night, having hooked up a friend and her friend with tickets to see ...And You Will Know Us By The Length of Our Name Trail of the Dead last night. They were one of those bands I dug in college and forgot about with the exception of a few notable songs, and they tend to have pretty swank artwork along with the tunes, and it's one of her favorite bands so it was nice to see her enjoy rocking out muchly. We're Team Early 90's, she jokes, as we meet up and I'm wearing a Soundgarden t-shirt with the Badmotorfinger artwork on it and she's got an old Nine Inch Nails shirt from way back when. Judging from the band t-shirts around us, the smaller crowd seemed to be about our age or so as well. Ume, the opener we did catch, was enjoyable to watch, with a girl guitarist who could have been the kid of Kim Gordon with her stage presence, and Thurston Moore's squalling guitars.
The last time I saw them, they were following up their major-label debut with a record that people didn't buy, and I remember the slamdancing at that show being incredibly fun, though my indie rock compadre at the time hated it and stood in the back with his arms folded as I let myself go in the waves of bodies in front of the stage. The pit was full of other amiable kids straddling the lines between punk and pre-Garden-State alt-rock, and I left feeling awesome and he left being cranky that night, complaining that it was "too heavy" and "too punk." We ended up leaving early because he drove, so I got to hear "How Near How Far" for the first time live this time. I forgot how much noisier and energetic this songs were live, stripped of the production, calling to mind the more incendiary early shows that got them signed.
Sources, Tags, and Codes was the album we were all most familiar with, and the choice cuts from that one that came out, damn, ten years ago, got the greatest response.
By the last song, we'd discovered how to recalibrate our bodies to move like they once did, as the band came out onto the floor with us and we left sweaty and satisfied by a band that almost tasted the bigtime and now is touring and thirsty again.
The last time I saw them, they were following up their major-label debut with a record that people didn't buy, and I remember the slamdancing at that show being incredibly fun, though my indie rock compadre at the time hated it and stood in the back with his arms folded as I let myself go in the waves of bodies in front of the stage. The pit was full of other amiable kids straddling the lines between punk and pre-Garden-State alt-rock, and I left feeling awesome and he left being cranky that night, complaining that it was "too heavy" and "too punk." We ended up leaving early because he drove, so I got to hear "How Near How Far" for the first time live this time. I forgot how much noisier and energetic this songs were live, stripped of the production, calling to mind the more incendiary early shows that got them signed.
By the last song, we'd discovered how to recalibrate our bodies to move like they once did, as the band came out onto the floor with us and we left sweaty and satisfied by a band that almost tasted the bigtime and now is touring and thirsty again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJVEbvVDk7s
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