the show

so brian and i went up to the built to spill show last weekend--and it was an interesting time. the opening bands were nothing special. some of their stuff was ok, and one of the bands had a pretty rocking lady drummer, but the sound seemed a bit off (ie the music was too loud and the vocals were too soft). thankfully they fixed the sound system for b2s.

it was really exciting when b2s finally came out. doug looked like doug, and that guy with the huge beard still had the huge beard. the first things that surprised me about b2s, or really doug, were that doug's head bobbles in a very strange way when he sings and that doug is not very personable.

so, first his head. his head was jerkily bobbling around as soon as he started singing the first song (liar). it seemed like it might be difficult to sing like that, but he pulled it off. as the show progressed, though, his head movements became a little less extreme and jerky. i guess maybe he just has to warm up his head.

and second his unpersonability. this surprised me, but i guess maybe it shouldn't have. doug was very into the music, but not so into the crowd (even though i thought we were a good crowd--lots of yelling and clapping). after each song he would give a canned "thanks." brian and i both agreed that if we didn't like b2s so much we probably would have found his performance personae disconcerting, but you can't not like them. the music's too good. to doug's credit, though, i did see him smile a few times, and he did say "thank you" a couple times instead of just his standard, lilting "thanks."



the important thing was that the music was great. they, and especially doug, are so good. we got in some good dancing. i particularly liked "strange," "going against your mind," and "big dipper," and i noticed that they played a lot of songs from their "keep it like a secret" album. i wonder if that's their favorite album...

after the show ended, i went up to the front and thanked one of the guys for coming to slc and for putting on a great show. he then gave me the play list. how cool is that? all-in-all, it was a great night.