Live
2009-03-27
House of Blues
Boston, MA
The music gods were watching over us, Snowmageddon passed through Colorado on Thursday evening/Friday morning, so we weren’t sure if we were going to make it out of town or not. We awoke at 3 am to drive to the airport for our 6am flight to Boston. There was no way to tell how much snow fell over night due to the howling wind, some places were bare others had 2+ foot snow drifts. We headed out on to the empty icy roads and made it to the airport. Our flight actually took off on time and we were on our way to Bean Town. We arrive in Boston to sunshine and warmth, a nice change from the ice, snow and 10 degree weather we left behind. We made our way to our hotel on the T, checked in and headed out to explore Back Bay and the MIT area of town. The venue was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel so we headed over about 6pm. The line was pretty long, they opened the doors about 6:45, a little earlier than scheduled. We made our way inside and tried to find where we wanted to be for the show. The crowd in front of the stage was about 4 deep, but we weren’t very interested in being down there, we scoped a spot on the side of the stage along the rail but by the time we got there the spot was taken, so we headed up to the second level and got a spot on the rail near the stage, a great view of the stage from above and great sound since we were at eye/ear level with the speak stack.
The opening band, Bare Hands?, has musical talent, however, the lead singer…shouldn’t sing. He was awful, but the band sounded pretty good, kind of a Killers, Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand sound. Talking with some friends after the show, they said the drummer is a really nice guy, but the lead singer needs to 1) bathe and 2) sober up some. Advice to the rest of Bare Hands, get a new lead singer.
Even without internet access, I had heard that new songs were played the night before (thanks Dan and Nick) so I was pumped for Live to take the stage. The guys came out to Old Blind Barnabas by The Blind Boys of Alabama over the PA system and launched in to Purifier! I can’t say that the new tracks are my favorites, but it was nice to hear something different than the same old set list. And then the guys rolled into Gas Head, Forever and Top!!! Gas Head was great to hear off of SS and Top simply ROCKED!!! Then the guys settled into the typical set list for a few songs and then broke out, what Ed said was 1 of 2 highlights from his life, #1 the cover of Rolling Stone and this one at #2 writing a song for a decent porno movie, Hold Me Up :guitar: Yes, it sounds like a song from the mid 90s, but it really rocks and makes me wonder why they never released it. I hope they continue to play it in concert. Hearing Hold Me Up made the entire trip from Colorado to Boston totally worth it. The guys really seemed to be having a great time, Ed was sounding great, Pat was doing his Pat thing, we couldn’t see CT or CG very well, but when we could see CT, he was tearing it up and Adam was singing his ass off, very nice. Others have said that the venue sounded good, we could really tell from where we were standing, since the stack was about 10 feet in front of us, but I have to say that Ed’s acoustic guitar was turned up to 11. Blowin’ in the Wind was a nice change of pace and W,D is always an amazing closer. The band left the stage a bit abruptly at the end of W,D but no one moved from where they were standing, I really thought the guys were going to come back out for another song or 2, especially once Old Blind Barnabas came on the PA system again, but alas the house lights went up and security opened the doors.
BTW, it looked like Ed had lyric sheets for Gas Head, Top and BITW taped to his “monitor”, (I added the quotes since the monitor wasn’t plugged into anything.)
Hopefully this is the beginning of something great for the band, they have been in a bit of a rut lately, but playing some new material and breaking out some “old” tunes in concert is a great change and I hope there is more in the works.
Talking with some folks “in the know” after the show, there is a summer tour in the works, Waterboy was rehearsed by the band before Ed arrived from his solo date in NYC, DWY was on the set list but was replaced with W,D, and Adam is doing a small show in PA “soon”.
A few show photos here.
