And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it

Inspired by my Anonymous, Bob-Dylan-quoting commenter, here’s a post after a long hiatus!

The Midlake show was pretty good - the band were obviously all physically ill, but they still put on a good show. Not too much deviation from the album, but a lot of really nice playing - a lot of their songs seemed to be in open tunings for the guitar, which I’m really fond of lately. It was also fun to go to a show again where there’s a delay because the band got stuck at the border, then came and hung out at the Green Room for awhile.

I ended up not going to Sparklehorse, even after describing them to my friends as “the aural equivalent of walking up to an old Southern mansion, only as soon as you enter, it's suddenly twilight, all the leaves have fallen from the trees outside, your friends are gone and there's a rabbit talking to you asking where all the stars went to”.

Last night I went to another show at Main Hall. How did the world know that just what I needed was to see skinny Norwegian dudes in tight pants and sunglasses shimmying around to drum machines and synthesizers? 120 Days were totally awesome. The main act, Shout Out Out Out Out wasn’t quite as good - kind of like a gang of happy robots with bass guitars breaking into your house while you’re trying to read, and playing the same song for an hour. Anyways, I still don’t enjoy dance music that much.

Tonight is TV on the Radio. I saw them before, opening for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, so we’ll see how they’ve transitioned to being headliners and critical darlings. I was initially skeptical about the new album, but I’ve come around a lot today, based on some re-listening, watching them on Letterman, and lyrics like these:

Hold these hearts courageously
As we walk into this dark place
Stand steadfast beside me and see
That love is the province of the brave