Long time no blog...

Saw Longwave with George last night--great show at Paradise, which has become my favorite Boston-area venue. How am I one to make such a judgment? Let's see, in the last two months I've seen:

Radiohead@Tweeter Center (A-)
The Sleepy Jackson and My Morning Jacket@Paradise (B, A+ respectively)
Nada Surf@The Middle East (A)
Interpol@Avalon (A)
Longwave@Paradise (A+).

All were really good shows. My Morning Jacket I had never heard anything from before the show (I went to see The Sleepy Jackson, mentioned in my previous post), but they were AWESOME live. Their newest album It Still Moves is really good, but they have this energy (kind of like earlier, "Casino Queen"-like Wilco) live that just doesn't come through on the CD. The Sleepy Jackson was only OK, I missed the opening of their set and a couple of my favorite songs, which I was kicking myself for. They don't quite have the polish live yet, and because their stuff is pretty elaborately produced and their shows are still low budget it doesn't translate as well.

Nada Surf was great, they've got a really impressive sound considering they're a three-piece. They did a heavier version of "Inside of Love" which sounded amazing. They also played all of their good songs, basically everything from Proximity Effect and Let Go (but not "Popular"). I hadn't heard "Amateur" or "80 Windows" before but they inspired me to buy Proximity Effect right after the show ended (as well as a tour poster). First time I've bought stuff at a show. Only $15 combined. I love those guys. Sidenote: their bass player (who also sings on a couple tracks) is a fucking chain-smoker from hell. He also has dreads. OK.

Interpol is one of my new favorite bands, GREAT rock 'n' roll and sweet live performance. Their lead singer has that cool disaffected rock frontman thing going on, but it's cool. His voice is weird (very monotone...but not), I can totally see if some people wouldn't be able to get over it, but I think it works. Amazing basslines to their music--I love popping that disc in the stereo as I drive to work. I was bummed they didn't play "The New"...but their performances of "Obstacle 1" and "Say Hello to the Angels" were perfect. I'm nominating the latter for best guitar riff of the year. Go out and buy Turn on the Bright Lights. Their set was short (only an hour) and the show was over by 10 so I was able to catch the end of Red Sox-Yankees Game 7.

And lastly Longwave, which was a great show and reminded me why I liked their CD so much. The lead singer seems like a really cool guy, just always in a good mood, totally belting out every song. We were about 10 feet from the lead singer, which is why I love Paradise--the crowd is set up in a rectangle that's wider than it is long, so you're incredibly close to the stage...feels like a bunch of friends watching a show together. Another thing I loved about the performance was how they did the kind of spaced-out guitar atmospherics...cool to see bands replicate stuff like that live. Best song: "The Ghosts Around You."