11/11. a dark cold wet but unrainy portland night. wait in line for about 15 mins. doors open. we walk in. me my wife and my 12 year old daughter. very, very cool to get to go to a concert with the 12 year old, she was pretty excited because she too is a big mountain goats fan. my wife was excited. i was excited, remembering the setlist from seattle.
we get in, go right upfront. i stand next to another tall guy so that we can take the heat of all the munchkins behind us together. he's a big final fantasy fan, a violinist, and planning on going to school in portland. we talk about the kind of music we like and have been listening to lately. i'd never heard any owen pallet before, i'm even unsure of how to spell his name, hope i got it right. because when he started building songs onstage with loops and a violin, i knew that i'd already gotten my money's worth.
same with my daughter. her school had a violin starter class and she was in it for a number of years, and for her to see a guy completely rocking and doing insane shit with a viofuckinlin....well, she was boppin the whole time, practically unable to contain herself. my wife too was entranced. i was amazed. i'd seen people do the whole computer loop thing, but there was something about him, something about his songs, that i really, really liked. we all liked him, our tall friend next to us was melting from excitement, i hope FF comes back to portland soon, because i'd like to see him play again. and i'm definitely going to listen to everything he does. not sure the performance will translate to audio only, because watching him build the songs slowly onstage was mesmerizing and a huge part of the appeal, to me.
he leaves, keeps his stuff there onstage and we're thinkin of every mountain goats song that has strings on it that they'll be doing together. but they don't do any of those. john comes on and he's not afraid to dance in this town. he talks about portland and living here and does a song about portland and i hope he does more and more songs about portland because what i heard was fantastic. new guitar player onstage, john rocking the schecter and the rainsong properly. see america right almost tore the roof off. thank you mario was cool because my 12 year old was listening to john talk about what the song's about and when my wife told her what he was talking about she positively beamed. a whole roomfull of nerds, we want the world and we want it now. handball was the opener and it was really neat to hear that. seemed like the show was top heavy, with only this year as the big barn burner ending. john's voice was hurting he said. and it seemed like just after it started it stopped. seemed like a short set, but his last words to the crowd were audible...."i'll be back sooner than you think."
and portland crowds suck, the houselights go on and everybody gives up immediately. and i'm past the age of screaming like a ninny while venues empty, so i gave up too. better john's voice rest to fight another day than to die in battle there. that was my second thought. my first thought was, destroy your voice here in portland, and let the next crowd suffer the consequences! i'm not ashamed.
more other little things. peter was going nuts on the bass, but there was so much to look at i didn't really get to watch him too much. the new guitarist was on the other side of the stage, so we only heard overtones of the ambiance he was adding. jon was percussion perfect as always, his light touches on the cymbals making john smile with delight. john seemed really energetic, really on, and i think he wore himself out dancing and thrashing about. he was drinking water from a water bottle. the new guitarist looked like he was having a great time, and the stuff he was doing added the right amount, and detracted none from the performances. the band doing handball worked well where dennis brown should strictly be solo.
no broom people. no up the wolves. no no children. no going to georgia. no best ever death metal band in denton. but that was fine by me, i'd seen him do those songs before. 12 year old was really hoping for at least death metal band, but i told her that if she heard everything she wanted to hear, there would be no magic to a concert performance. getting what you want isn't the point. getting what you get is. and we definitely got a show, i think a great show. a portland show, which always seem a little different from the recordings of shows from other cities. the song about portland really was good, and the local places he mentioned got everybody yelling and representin, even the plaid pantry mention got people cheering.
a group of girls singing too loudly during love love love, but i thought they were actually not too bad. we weren't right next to them though. seemed like john was a little annoyed with them at first, but then he just went with it. when the roadie guy was setting up john's guitar near the front of the stage, some ninny reached out and touched it or something and roadie got stern. dood got told. it was funny. what else. john's a good piano player. i had the wrong idea that he only knew some rudimentary stuff....but he was really good, as good as i wish i was at least.
daughter got a t-shirt. my mom babysat baby boy, my mom who raised 3 boys herself was about to call us because he was doing his ritual i'm pissed as hell and i'm not going to take it any......z..zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. got teeth coming in.
lion's teeth.
~ i ' m g o n n a s p o o n a l l t h e j u d g e s ~
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2009 02:01PM by mike3000.
November 09, 2009 12:30PM | Portland Show 11/11
