this boys life among the electrical lights

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October 31, 2007

this boys life among the electrical lights

so i woke up later than i planned yesterday - something about the crisp fall weather made the temptation to linger beneath the covers far too tempting...i had a big appointment down in birmingham but i knew i was going to gain an hour due to this glorious invention known as central time. so i arose at my leisure showered shaved and whipped up a seven cheese egg white omelette and then hit the road....okay, that part about the omelette i made up because as we all know i'm not much for breakfast and of course there are really only two kinds of cheese - white and yellow.

45 minutes outside of birmingham my left rear tire had what appeared to be a blowout. so i negotiated the impala to the right shoulder and stepped out of the car and confirmed the diagnosis. crap! of course the spare tire on the company car is one of those little donut jobs roughly the size of a big wheel so i knew at least part of my day was going to be devoted to replacing a damaged tire. i was in the middle of nowhere and the blackberry couldn't pull in a signal and i had absentmindedly left the sony ericsson tata at home so i had no choice but to drive 50 miles on the donut - which in case you were wondering is a terrible idea. those things weren't made to cruise the interstates.

i made it to birmingham without further incident and actually found a tire place less than a mile from my appointment. the guys at the shop were great - they replaced all 4 tires and changed my oil in under an hour - and off i went to my appointment. keep in mind i was supposed to be at the client's office between 9 - 9:30 cst. i finally arrived at noon. and of course i was in a panic because this was a big audit and i had to drive to the atl for the new pornographers show. but everything went smoothly and i arrived safely at joel's front doorstep at 6:30.

we grabbed dinner at fellini's - stared deeply into one another's eyes for a bit had a cigarette or two and headed down to the variety playhouse where immaculate machine were just wrapping up their set. but that's okay because i totally scored a sweet parking spot behind the venue and the crowd was still fairly sparse. i'm a terrible person for not remembering the name of the second band - they were from glasgow and put on a decent show. i was more intrigued by the banter between songs because i love a good brogue. and the singer was talking about how she had just seen the darjeeling limited - and i just saw the darjeeling limited and i was thinking it might be cool to hang out with her in a pub over a pint and discuss the merits of that particular film.

sadly, it wasn't meant to be. so i grabbed a couple of $5 beers and made my way closer to the front for the main event. i of course positioned my self stage left (neko's right) so that i would be directly in her line of vision. and there was a friendly girl from athens in front of us who was fond of high fives and mexican noises. probably because the awkward guy next to her kept buying her glasses of wine. after the show they left together so apparently his $30 investment paid off. go awkward guy! but i'm getting ahead of myself.

the new pornographers rocked our faces of for nearly two solid hours...and honestly it seemed like they played everything. i'm fairly certain that joel, high five mexican girl and i were directly responsible for the band playing miss teen word power and letter from an occupant because we totally requested both. and there was much dancing. at one point dan bejar was lurking in the crowd a mere 10 feet from me but i kept my distance - because dan bejar terrifies me. even though his songs are usually my favourites. especially testament to youth in verse off of electric version. easily my favourite new pornographers song...and it's so great live...anyway, there were a couple of technical glitches during the show as well as some tense moments when someone in the crowd told the band to shut up and play more songs - at which point neko threateaned to kick a few asses. i love neko. and honestly, that was easily the best $22.50 i've spent in quite some time. it almost makes up for me totally lame-ing out of the sunset rubdown show a couple of weeks ago....almost.

| By young_christopher | 6:31 PM

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Comments

Emma Pollack is the name of the girl with the brogue. I'm jealous of your awesome show.

Posted by: heidi at November 1, 2007 9:47 AM

Kelly and I are going tonight here in Houston. I'll give you guys a quick rundown tomorrow.

Posted by: Nick at November 1, 2007 1:46 PM

Okay, so the New Pornographers were good, but they went about the show in an almost businesslike fashion. Competent, but not passionate. Too many later songs for my taste, only one song from Mass Romantic (that being the title track). I think they cut the show short since they weren't headlining, which is unfortunate, because I would have liked to have heard more material off of MR. But don't get me wrong, I'd still like to sex Neko. Spoon (who headlined), once again blew me away. They were razor sharp as usual, and were obviously having a lot of fun. They had the horn section with them again as they did at ACL, and their sound was full without being muddled, loud but not annoyingly so. My only complaint is that they (again) played "The Ghost of You Lingers" which is filler at best, and stupid at worst. At least live they try to take the song somewhere by rocking it a little harder, but it still fails. The crowd was way more into Spoon than NP, probably since they're more or less from the area. Emma Pollock was decent, she would have a lot of mainstream appeal. I could easily hear her songs in the dressing rooms of department stores.

Posted by: Nick at November 2, 2007 10:14 AM

first: new pornographers are canadian. canadians don't do "passionate" second: why the hell were the new pornographers opening for spoon? no offense nick but britt daniel is no a.c. newman or dan bejar or neko case et. al. no sir...they played mass romantic - my slow descent into alcoholism - and letter from an occupant at our show. you got hosed!

Posted by: youn_christopher at November 2, 2007 12:30 PM

To be fair, Kelly said she liked the New Pornos better than Spoon, but I still stick by my original assertion. They played great, but it's almost as if they were pouting because they weren't headlining and thought they should be. Maybe I'm just ticked that they didn't play more songs off Mass Romantic. I really wish they would have played "Execution Day." I'd love to hear that song live.

Posted by: Nick at November 5, 2007 2:59 PM

Atlas Hugged

October 31, 2007