Tag Archives: music

Lisa Loeb Concert

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Tonight, for the first time in about three years, Lisa Loeb played in Portland. KT and I have often joked that we’re probably the only two Lisa Loeb fans in Portland, as evidenced by the fact that she never plays here. We figured we’d be proven wrong tonight, since she wasn’t opening for anyone, but once we got there, we found out she hadn’t brought her whole band, just one extra guy to play backup guitar. It was still a fun concert though, and the third song she played was probably the highlight of the night.

Okay, this next song is from our upcoming album… (Lisa begins playing a slow song… about 30 seconds into it, she stops playing abruptly) …Maybe this isn’t the best time to play this song. It sounds like they’re washing the dishes. (in the background, you can hear someone spraying off the dishes from the grill) …Man, what are they washing back there? It sounds like they’re rinsing out a big tub… a big plastic tub. I guess we shouldn’t play such a slow song now. (begins strumming guitar again) …something a little more upbeat… like… the Plastic Tub song! It goes like this… (Lisa begins imitating the sound of the spray on the tub while playing guitar. Everyone laughs) Hmmm… what song could we play? (woman in front row yells “PLAY THE TUB SONG!”) …The what? …what? Tab song? …tab? Oh! Oh! The TUB song! Man, I thought you were saying Tab. …Y’all have got some thick accents. I’m from Texas, and I was like ‘tab song? what tab song?’

After that, she improvise this totally funny song about how she wanted some wine, and she deserved it because the only bad thing she’d had today was a few donuts in Seattle.

The Ataris Concert

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Last night, Annie and I got to go see the Ataris in concert. My cousin Deni is married to Kris, the lead singer, so she got us in free. The show was at the Roseland, so we watched it from the balcony because of Annie’s foot. I’d never watched a show from the balcony before, but I’m glad I did this time. Ataris fans are, on average, 15 years old, appearently. We pretty much spent the whole night just being startled by how young everyone there was.

One of the highlights of the evening was definitely watching this enormous fat dude in the mosh pit. He must have been three times the size of anyone else in there, and he was INDESTRUCTABLE. It was like watching a tank. Everyone else was jumping around and slamming into one another. This guy just waded through everyone else, and he never budged. There were 14-year olds bouncing off him right and left. It was truly an awe-inspiring sight. Kind of like watching animal planet.

The Ataris put on a good show. They really keep the crowd’s energy high, and you can tell they were having fun. After the last song, Kris lit his guitar on fire, and smashed it on stage. Or rather, he tried to smash it on stage. After about five blows, it kind of bent, but it never broke. I asked him about it, and he explained that some guitars have a metal rod in the neck, but he assumed this one wouldn’t, since it was really cheap. Then he showed me where the strings had cut up his hand.

All in all, it was a pretty cool show, but Annie pointed something out that made the whole thing seem kind of surreal. After one of the songs, she leaned over and said “Your grandmother knows the lead singer of this punk band.”

After realizing something like that, it’s pretty hard to take the show seriously.

Karaoke for Annie's Birthday

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Last night was Annie’s birthday, so she decided that she wanted to go out to a place called the Java Jive. Despite the name and the fact that the place is housed in a building shaped like a coffepot, it’s a bar. An incredibly small bar with an overwhelming amount of tacky decorations everywhere and graffiti on every surface. In short, the kind of place Annie loves. She pointed out to me that even though the bartender told her not to, she wrote something on the wall as a tribute to her friend Stacy, who died recently. Oh, and did I mention that it was a karaoke bar? Fortunately, most people sang either rock ballads (Every Rose Has A Thorn) or country songs that I didn’t know. But just so I wouldn’t feel left out, they ruined a few songs that I do like, including The Devil Went Down To Georgia, The Humpty Dance, and several Johnny Cash songs. Thankfully, they discovered that the CD with Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus had a scratch on it before I was forced to commit murder.

Things I learned last night:

  • Karaoke bar people think that what you lack in singing talent you can make up for in volume.
  • Karaoke bar people have bad taste in music.
  • Some people really do need killin’.
  • I can only pray that when I die, my friends care enough about me to deface a drinking establishment in my name.
  • Annie and I have very different tastes in interior decoration.
  • The only way I would ever, under any circumstances, do karaoke is if Steve and I got on stage to perform Stand By Your Man.

Things I will learn soon:

  • Posting jokes about your girlfriend’s favorite things is a bad idea.

St. Germain: Best Concert Ever!

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Last night, Annie and I and some friends from the radio station drove to Seattle to see a band we found out about by accident. St. Germain is an amazing French jazz/techno act. We had all listened to the CD which is amazing techno with jazz influences. But the concert was more like a jazz show. In an hour and a half, the band played maybe seven songs (and they played “Rose Rouge” twice), so the songs averaged about 10-15 minutes each. There were eight people on stage (even though I’ve found out now that St. Germain is actually just one guy). There was the DJ (St. Germain himself), a keyboardist, a drummer, a percussionist (bongos, mostly), an amazing reggae guitarist, a saxophone player and a trumpet player. They only spoke once to introduce themselves after the first encore. The rest of the show was just these guys playing as hard as they could. It was really really cool. Most modern pop/rock acts are just three or four guys, and they all kinda defer to the lead singer, who dominates the show. At this show, EVERYONE had at least one solo, they were all cheering each other on the whole time, and no one really dominated. It was absolutely incredible, and there was a great happy atmosphere in the crowd (no one tried to fight, and there wasn’t much shoving).

Some highlights of the show:

  • During “So Flute,” the saxophonist plays the flute instead. He stands up and belts out this little flute riff which is really cool sounding… then pauses, and tries to play it again… his flute squeaks, and he looks at it like it’s broken… then he holds it up to the mic, and the DJ plays the flute part again, like the flute was playing by itself.
  • The dualing-bangos-style song, where the keyboardist and the bongo player faced off… for five minutes.
  • The COWBELL solo. No, I’m not kidding. And yes, it was totally cool.
  • The fact that during the five minute drum solo, the rest of the band just stood and looked on admiringly while the drummer beat out an amazing set.

It’s hard to put it into words, but it was just an amazing show. I loved the fact that the concert was more jazzy than techno, and I loved the attitude of these guys, who were clearly just having a blast.