Monday, October 24, 2005
Live From Indianapolis...
Greetings from Indianapolis, home of David Letterman and a lot of race cars.
No real politics to weigh in on, so I'll blog on the main reason for my trip up, the Nickel Creek show here in Indy. I have a friend who lives up this way, so it made a great reason to plan a visit to this very flat city.
The show, held at the really cool Murat Center Egyptian Room was opened by an insufferable novelty group called the Ditty Bops. Suffice it to say, there is a reason why you don't see many groups doing a '20s throwback act including a magician/juggler.
Nickel Creek certainly held up their end of the bargain, though. The show was a solid mix of music from the first two albums, including the standards This Side and A Lighthouse's Tale. The new songs certainly sounded better live than they do on the album, but I just don't like a lot of it. I listen to acoustic music to escape a lot of the put-on pretension of indie rock that the new album seems to embrace.
However, pretentiousness left the building as soon as the Ditty Bops left the stage tonight. No one plays a mandolin like Chris Thile, and his skill shone brightly as he blew threw Smoothie Song and Stumptown. The night's highlights, though, came in the form of covers. To the frankly mindblowing delight of the crowd, the gang did a cover of Britney Spears' Toxic. I would have been speechless if I wasn't laughing my ass off at how they are able to make that song sound good.
The encore was an almost Phish-esque transition between the Band classic "Up on Cripple Creek" and crowd favorite "The Fox." The moves were almost seamless, and the only downside was a crowd that looked like they hand never heard of the song before. Their loss, but they still clapped away.
So, that's it from Indy. Good Nickel Creek show, but they were better at Memorial Auditorium in downtown Chattaboogie.
Have I missed any indictments while I've been gone?
No real politics to weigh in on, so I'll blog on the main reason for my trip up, the Nickel Creek show here in Indy. I have a friend who lives up this way, so it made a great reason to plan a visit to this very flat city.
The show, held at the really cool Murat Center Egyptian Room was opened by an insufferable novelty group called the Ditty Bops. Suffice it to say, there is a reason why you don't see many groups doing a '20s throwback act including a magician/juggler.
Nickel Creek certainly held up their end of the bargain, though. The show was a solid mix of music from the first two albums, including the standards This Side and A Lighthouse's Tale. The new songs certainly sounded better live than they do on the album, but I just don't like a lot of it. I listen to acoustic music to escape a lot of the put-on pretension of indie rock that the new album seems to embrace.
However, pretentiousness left the building as soon as the Ditty Bops left the stage tonight. No one plays a mandolin like Chris Thile, and his skill shone brightly as he blew threw Smoothie Song and Stumptown. The night's highlights, though, came in the form of covers. To the frankly mindblowing delight of the crowd, the gang did a cover of Britney Spears' Toxic. I would have been speechless if I wasn't laughing my ass off at how they are able to make that song sound good.
The encore was an almost Phish-esque transition between the Band classic "Up on Cripple Creek" and crowd favorite "The Fox." The moves were almost seamless, and the only downside was a crowd that looked like they hand never heard of the song before. Their loss, but they still clapped away.
So, that's it from Indy. Good Nickel Creek show, but they were better at Memorial Auditorium in downtown Chattaboogie.
Have I missed any indictments while I've been gone?
Comments:
Yeah, the Memorial show was good, except for the sound. When they all came out in front of the mics and invited the audience to gather 'round, it sounded better than when they were running through the house (and that's not their fault; it's a common problem there).
And as for covers, I prefer Radiohead to Britney Spears any day.
And as for covers, I prefer Radiohead to Britney Spears any day.
# posted by 
: 9:50 AM
: 9:50 AM
That was the one thing I left out in my post - the sound sucked at the show last night. I'm still not totally clear where it was coming from, but I hink it was Sara's wireless connection on her fiddle. Anyway, you could hear a radio station, or at least some other music, over the PA. Not so great.
If you had seen the Britney cover, you'd be singing a different tune, believe me. :)
If you had seen the Britney cover, you'd be singing a different tune, believe me. :)
Hey Daniel, don't know if you'll follow up on this, but if you could give me a link, that would be helpful!
Don't know if Daniel will follow up, but I will. :-)
His unofficial Kurita blog is at http://kuritaforsenate.blogspot.com/
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His unofficial Kurita blog is at http://kuritaforsenate.blogspot.com/
# posted by : 11:47 AM
: 11:47 AM
