The Tigers Have Spoken in Le Garage

My new position at work must be keeping me a lot busier, as I just realized I haven’t posted a thing to this blog in a long time. I now get home later, and I’m noticeably more worn out. But it’s going well, and I’m learning a great deal. Now, let’s see if I can even think of anything to write about…

We caught Neko Case a few weeks ago at the Bluebird. I haven’t picked up her last couple of releases, but the show made me think that I need to track those down soon. The woman has an amazing voice, the way she can effortlessly hit some notes is truly mind blowing. A great casual stage manner as well, she was very self depreciative and humorous. It had been a few years since I last saw her, and I think she’s just keeps getting better. Despite not seeing a single mention of the show in the local media, the turnout was pretty big. This was the first of two nights she was playing at the theater, and she begged everyone to come back the following night so that there would be someone there besides her and her band. Damn, I should have gone… The support act was Low Sky, who played kind of slow roots tunes. The singer sounded a great deal like Ian McCulloch of the Bunnymen to my ears – not a bad thing in my book.

Earlier this week I was back at the Bluebird to see The Futureheads. The show was pretty much the same as the one I saw seven months ago at the Larimer Lounge, just in a bigger venue with a larger crowd (and strobe lights! more on that below…). My buddy JT, who I gave their CD to for Xmas, admitted he was a bit skeptical that the band would be able to duplicate their vocal interplay in a live setting. He was pleasantly surprised by how well they managed to pull it off. Their set was very high energy - they played all of the songs on their debut CD, plus a few b-sides (I really need to track down Piece of Crap!) and a cover of the Television Personalities A Picture of Dorian Gray. A really fun night and openers High Speed Scene were pretty enjoyable as well.

There were signs entering the Bluebird the night of The Futureheads advising the audience that strobe lights would be in use. Once inside the venue, they had posted these signs about every ten feet. They even had them posted on the doors into the restrooms. For some reason, this struck me as particularly funny – c’mon, they won’t have the strobes going in the men’s room! That would make it incredibly difficult to use the facilities. As is turned out, they only used the strobes a few times. Unlike the time I saw Spiritualized, and they had the strobes going at some point during every song. I got dizzy a few times that night…