Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Modest Mouse Show
Well, I ended up going by myself to Modest mouse yesterday, but it turned out ok. The drive to Portland takes about an hour and 45 minutes and was complete hell. It had been raining all day and still was, so the roads were shit, and the visibility at night was really bad. I could feel the car start to hydroplane a few times which is scary at 55 MPH. Needless to say I slowed down at that point. When I got there I parked, peed in Powells and managed to wander my way back to the venue. I sold my ticket on the way for $20 (the extra ticket).

Crystal Ballroom is a pretty decent concert place because its not too huge. They divide it down the middle for over and under 21, and I stayed on the under side because its usually more friendly and actually a lot less crowded. I sat on a bench against the wall right next to the merch table and suffered through the first two bands. The Vells played first and were terrible, and the next band was the thermals (I think) which were a lot better but the singer had an annoying voice. Also all of their songs had the same tempo and style which is really dull.

My little bench seat was pretty far back, and I usually like to get up front but MM is so big here in their hometown that it gets abit like a Metallica concert up there. The good thing is that while standing on the bench it makes me like 8 feet tall and I can see over exactly everyone in the show.

They played a pretty decent mix of songs, mostly from the new album. They played 3rd planet, walls are paper thin and one other from moon that I forget exactly. From Lonesome crowded west they played out of gas, cowboy dan and styrofoam boots. One think I noticed different from April's show was that there were six people on stage. They had a backup "drummer" and an extra vocalist/standup bass player. The extra people really let them pull off the songs from the new album better since there are a lot of extra instruments on about half of the songs. Backup vocals were a nice touch too. One thing that was pretty funny was that they butchered Float On. It started with a super loud electronic bass beat, and Isaac sang it with weird enunciation so you could tell that they were sick of that song. I imagine from touring around and playing that one song over and over on talk shows gets annoying. After 7 or 8 CD's that song is going to be their "creep" (Radiohead).

Anyway it was a fine show even without my better half, and the drive back was dry and easy. I listened to Mitch Hedberg and laughed for 45 straight minutes.
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