K@ soup

*I started this Wednesday and got lazy.  I’m continuing to be lazy by putting this note instead of changing the tenses of the text to follow.  Deal with it.

Last night Logan and I went to see The Fiery Furnaces, but were both absolutely blown away by the opening band Grand Ole Party. My fellow banana slugs were clearly meant for stardom, but I’ll get to them later.

Jamie Lidell has a nice ass. His performance last Saturday sort of left me feeling like that’s the only thing he may have going for him, but he really does have a smokin’ backside. I’m not sure if it’s my fault for expecting a much different performance or if it really was the delivery, but I left the show dissatisfied. I was looking forward to a happy, funky, almost pop-like started-off-bobbing-your-head-but-now-are-bouncing-your-shoulders-too-oh-fuck-it-lets-just-dance type show but only got a song or 2 of it. The show started off extremely energetic and I was amped - they totally got my attention - but after I stopped giggling about the costumes, things changed. I guess Lidell started off as a dj so it wasn’t long before he made his way to the turn tables. He kept going back in the beginning of the performance and then eventually just stayed, turning the show into much more of a dj set with unnecessary band members dancing around in an Elvis costume (Elvis didn’t look too bad from the rear either) and a groovy red silk robe. DJ’s are cool and all, but don’t deliver when you’re expecting a live, non-sampled performance, you know? I wasn’t really upset about going to the show at that point - I just sort of felt robbed. Then the encore for our teeny tiny audience was outrageously fast. He played songs I wanted to hear, but I didn’t want to hear them at mach speed (but if that’s faster than the speed of sound, technically I wouldn’t even hear the songs…or maybe they’d be playing backward - that could have been interesting, but I digress).

So we went to see The Fiery Furnaces last night and somehow lucked out with PERFECT timing for the opening band. (This NEVER happens to us, by the way. We either sit for 90 minutes and are so drunk for the main act that we end up leaving early because we’re tired, or curse the venue for their punctuality which led to us missing the 2 openers we actually wanted to see. And this is especially true at Plush where the sound dude takes an hour to set up every damn band playing so you never know when they will start, which leads me to believe they have a new sound dude, but again, I digress.)  Grand Ole Party was the opener and I can say with confidence that any band would be lucky to have them rev the crowd up for a great night of music.  I’m in love with lead singer/drummer Kristin Gundred.  The other 2 band members seemed disposable next to her (no offense), but they churned through song after song, not giving into their cockiness and plugging their album after each tune.  Logan and I had bets going on whether or not Kristen was just being adorably militaristic about playing and not boring the crowd, or if she really has no clue how talented she is (or how talented we think she is…I see her going far).  She has incredible vocal control and that’s on top of wailing on the drums at the same time.  It has to be loud up there but she seems to instinctively know how loud to sing into the mic - an impressive skill you don’t see often.  I can’t really describe her voice though…maybe if you ironed out and put a little WD-40 on the vocal chords of the chick from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs you’d get something similar.  I said to Logan the other day, “maybe if Janis Joplin didn’t suck…but you can’t say that she sucks, so…” and was left with nightmares of hippies beating me up.  At any rate, their hits were fun and bouncy and it really was a great performance.  I’d love to hear Kristin’s voice with professional reggae base and guitar players…

So onto the Fiery Furnaces…so there’s this thing.  I can’t place it, I don’t claim to understand it, but it’s there.  The Fiery Furnaces put on a fantastic performance.  They have a cool, original sound and I would recommend them to anyone.  I have all their albums on my iPod, Logan loves them and we went to see them live, but they in no way grab me.  They’re great - I don’t get it.  They just aren’t for me.  My time during the show was spent doing one of 4 things: staring at the glockenspiel player whacking away at it with thimbles on every finger except her pinkies (it was REALLY cool), guessing if the lead singer was wearing scrubs or just a hippie pheasant top, wondering when Luke Wilson became a drummer (sorry I couldn’t get a good picture of him, but seriously) and sitting 20 feet away from Kristin Gundred trying to get up the nerve to tell her I really enjoyed their show.  So yeah, it was a good show but I don’t have anything to say about it.  Good thing Logan does.