I won tickets to Thee Oh Sees through the wonderful Radio 1190. I am familiar with them, but never owned an album or anything. Later that day Carleigh won tickets through the event organizer or something. So Jack, Carleigh, Liz and I left for the show pretty early. I guess way earlier then I realized since we were some of the first people to arrive. It allowed us get some really nice seats on the balcony at least. The first band was Dirty Few. They sang about drinking, spit into each others mouths, tried to ride a skateboard on the stage and appeared to have a blast. We enjoyed it for what it was, but I could go for less spitting.

The next band was Rubedo and they started their set by saying “Hello we are Rubedo and we’re going to rock your socks off!” They didn’t. I guess now that it’s been a couple days I can at least acknowledge that they were interesting. The drummer was fun to watch. The singer would go in between seizures and motivational speaker poses. He even got up on the speaker and spewed meaningless new age crap. He unfortunately didn’t jump. Their music was what you would expect for a band who claims “Rubedo is the physical manifestation of sound streaming from the psyche of its members. This is the alchemy of rock and roll.” Except worse. Fuzz, Rob and Leslie had luckily arrived in time to see this band with us.

It’s amazing how quickly you can tell when a band is good, because it took about 3 seconds for Thee Oh Sees to establish how awesome they are. Straight forward intense shredding for two hours. Toe Cutter and The Dream are a couple of the songs I knew and they were played well. The crowd was super into it. The dueling drummers were really fun to watch. When it was over my ears were ringing and they had gained a new fan. What a great band to see live.

Liz and I went to the early showing of this video. We met up with Fuzz and Carleigh after some dinner with Darin and posted up next to one of the stars of the night, Shad. It was rad. Lots of teasers including a new Null one. The video itself was awesome. Not a hammer video with lots of raw street skating that can be viewed over and over. I can’t wait to get a copy of it. Liz and I bailed as soon as the credits started to get to the J Mascis show.

We said a quick hello to friends then posted right up front. I laughed as J’s guitars were brought to the front with the airplane tags still on them. Kinda hard to see in my cell phone photo above, but we shared a laugh with the guy next to us who might even be a bigger J Mascis nerd than me (not possible). The fire alarm at the Hi-Dive was going off which was pretty annoying.

J was walked up front looking frail and awkward and after a quick “Hello” busted right into The Wagon. Pretty much my favorite song ever. Although I’ll admit that’s one of those songs that benefits from the added noise of the whole band. Next up was Listen To Me off the new album and then Several Shades Of Why. Several Shades may have been my favorite song of the night. Then he went on to play mostly oldies including classics like Alone, Get Me, Ammarring, Quest. Oceans In The Way had one of the loudest crowd responses which kind of surprised Liz and I, but is just more evidence that Farm is one of their finest. I was surprised and excited to hear Not The Same. Not Enough went off. Flying Cloud is another runner up for my favorite song of the night. The encore was Raisons then Repulsion I think. The show was great. The only thing that takes away from it to me is this was the Several Shades Of Why tour and he only played four songs from it. A couple more would have made this show beyond epic to me. That being said, it was still a totally awesome show and J Mascis cannot be touched. After the show I went to get a t-shirt, but they had all sold out except one size large and a bunch of XXL (I’m not Mikey). Doh. Read a better review and see better photos at heyreverb.com.

It’s been awhile since this show happened, but one thing or another and it took awhile to get this online.  Anyways, the night began at Fuzz’s favorite ska venue 3 Kings Tavern.  We were there to see my friend Zach’s band Straighten The Crooked open for some ska music that we would later have to pull Fuzz away from.  I was to shoot some video for for them to put up on youtube.  Unfortunately as soon as they went on stage 3 Kings shut off most of the lights and there wasn’t much light to film.  After filming one song I snapped these photos, but they didn’t come out too well either.  The show was sick though.  They have gotten tighter and a better stage presence.  So stoked.  Did I tell you I’m friends with the singer in the band?  Whew!   Both Carleigh and Fuzz blogged about the show too.  Well, maybe not so much about the show, but at least about how you can get socks in the vending machine at 3 Kings.Zach killing it on the bass.  After Straighten The Crooked we bolted over to the Larimer Lounge because I wanted to see The Henry Clay people.  A little band I didn’t know much about other than their new album is really fun rock ‘n roll.  We got there with plenty of time and ended up seeing an opening band called The Dig.  They started out pretty good, but by the end of their set none of us were feeling them.  They’ve got some potential for sure, who knows if they’ll fulfill it.I had taken enough “professional” photos already so I left my camera in the car allowing me to take such high quality photos as the one above.  Henry Clay people came on and immediately began rocking the house.  Lots of energy, lots of fun.  I figured they’d be pretty good live, but they exceeded all expectations.  As the show progressed it became evident that once again, an opening band at the Larimer would act like idiots, pretend they owned the floor and throw ice cubes at the headliner.  I don’t know if the Larimer requires this, but either way it’s annoying.  Henry Clay People took it in stride though.  In fact I don’t think a smile ever left the singers face.  I might even say that I’ve never seen a band have that much fun on stage.  They played most of the new album and quite a few covers.  Lou Reed, Op Ivy, Bruce Springsteen and closed with Neil Young.  I loved the covers.  I loved that it annoyed the hipsters.  They played them great.  The show was awesome.  Good times Rock ‘N Roll.  Everything and more I want to see in a show.  This band is awesome.