An A1 body and a face to match

A week of business and travel combined with the arrival of a new, focused boss has meant the neglect of the quality of this here page. Like, it's getting watered, but that's it: I dump some water in it, but there's no love, no gentle pruning, no attention. It's really pretty criminal. But at least it's still alive.

That said, here's my dashed-off, not-at-all-anticipated review of last night's Belle and Sebastian and New Pornographers show at the 9:30. Most of you can (and should) bail out of this post right here.

One of the most important parts: our spot at the 9:30 was choice. We got there at 7:00 to find that they had already opened the doors, and I was picturing another 9:30 battle for balcony spot, but we ended up smack in the center of the balcony above the sound booth and stayed there the whole time. Perfect.

The New Pornographers took more of a role of "opening band" than I thought they would. They were cramped up at the front of the stage in front of B&S's equipment, and the lighting could only be described as "on". Even though they could probably sell out the 9:30 by themselves, and that the audience was widely familiar with their whole catalog, it was pretty clear that this was a Belle and Sebastian show.

Still, the New Pornos played a long set that was alternately fantastic ("The Bleeding Heart Show" gave me chills) and sloppy ("Sing Me Spanish Techno" was not nearly the show-stopper I'd hoped for). They had taken a pretty relaxed approach to the show, going it without a setlist and relying on shouted requests from the crowd, and the Neko Case stand-in, though she sounded good, had some kind of sickness that gave her voice a croak and kept her from really being able to hit the high notes. Still, they were really fun to watch, with drummer Kurt Dahle showing some unbelievable skins skills, not to mention some quality stick twirling and tossing.

Probably the best part of their set, though, was the between-song chatter, which was some of the funniest I've ever heard. And a funny exchange is made even funnier when it's two band members having a conversation with each other through microphones. As the New Pornographers got ready to play their last song, singer Carl Newman and drummer Kurt Dahle had the following exchange, which probably won't translate, but still cracks me up to think about it:

Kurt: "We promise that Belle and Sebastian will be less drunk and less sick than us."
Carl: "Wait, wait, wait...who's drunk?"
Kurt: "A bunch of us are."
Carl: "Our story was supposed to be that we're sick!"

Oh, Canada! You fun-lovers!

Belle and Sebastian took their sweet-ass time getting on stage, and even once they were onstage, they sort of meandered around a while before finally starting into, "The Stars of Track and Field."

The show as a whole was...okay. It had some great highlights, but with only some rare exceptions, the songs were exactly the same as they were on record, and their new, more confident stage show came across as almost cocky at moments. Don't get me wrong...it was still a great show, though I wonder how much of that was that it was really a "great show" and how much of it was that I could listen to any Belle and Sebastian songs on shuffle anytime and anywhere and be happy.

The rundown goes like this

Highlights

• "Your Cover's Blown" (in the jukebox) They could have stood still on stage while the recorded version played over the speakers and it still would have been a highlight. Fantastic.
  
• "Sukie In The Graveyard". It's not one of my favorites on the album, but it was one of the most fun songs of the night.
• "White Collar Boy", which rocked as much as I figured it would
  

Surprises

• "Fox In The Snow", one of the best quiet-song-that-sounds-great-loud songs ever.
  
• "String Bean Jean", which is kind of dumb to say, because that was the exciting surprise the last time I saw them, but it's one of my favorites.
• "I Don't Love Anyone"
• "Simple Things", which is not one of my favorite songs of theirs, but it just sounds so great live
• "The State That I Am In". For as long as I live, I will never not love this song.
  

Could have done without

• "Electronic Renaissance". It's a good song and all, but I didn't really need to hear a note-perfect version of it live.

I wish they'd played

• "The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner"
• "The Blues Are Still Blue"
• "Judy and the Dream Of Horses"
• "Me And the Major"
• "Act of the Apostle I"
  

I'm heading back for show #2 tonight, even though I still need to pack and get ready for my out-of-townness this week. And people, I hope that it goes without saying, but don't fuck with my apartment while I'm gone. I have this German-Filipino guy watching out for it, and the man will mess you up if you so much as look at it wrong, capiche?

Additions to this page this week will be sporadic at best, but likely non-existant. Enjoy your work weeks, suckers.