Yikes!! I have been neglecting my poor little music blog. I really have no excuse. (OK, I do have excuses, good ones too. But that's not what we're here for.) So, without further ado, come one and all to hear tales of that grand American tradition - summer concerts.
Kings of Leon
On July 20th Kings of Leon played at Fiddler's Green (or Comfort Dental Amphitheater or whatever the hell you want to call it). Kelly and I had tickets on the lawn because the not-on-the-lawn tickets were ridiculously priced. Openers were The Features and Built to Spill. I liked The Features. A great opener for Kings of Leon. The lead singer's voice reminds me a little of Eddie Vedder, but higher. I honestly don't remember a lot about Built to Spill's set. They weren't bad, but not really attention catching either.
Kings of Leon's set was pretty good...but I've seen better. They just didn't have that "I'm gonna make you hang on my every word like I'm Jesus" kind of spirit that I look for in a live show. Maybe it was because they were tired of playing "Use Somebody" and "Sex on Fire" over and over and over again. Maybe I just saw it that way because it was raining in my $13 beer. Who knows? For whatever reason, a lot of the show fell a bit flat to me. The best parts were when they played a few songs from their new album, Come Around Sundown, which hadn't been released yet at that point. The band had a little more fire when they played those.
All in all, it wasn't a bad show. The band played well, it just didn't have enough heart for me. I would like to see them again some day.
Sick Puppies
To celebrate both of our birthdays, my friend James and I went to see Sick Puppies at the Bluebird Theater on August 16th. The opener was a band from Florida called It's Alive. They were good. I'd describe their sound as hard rock, leaning toward metal. They did a fantastic job of getting the audience "into it." That is often very difficult for an opening band to do, especially one that's not well known. You could just tell they were having the time of their lives.
Sick Puppies' set was awesome. They have a surprisingly big sound for a three piece band. Emma is a super badass on the bass. There's one of their songs called Master of the Universe that I just can't figure out how she fits that many notes into that short of a space. Some of my favorite SP songs were on the set list, including Riptide and Street Fighter (War). They also did a cover of one of my all time favorite songs, Mad World, originally by Tears for Fears (but the Gary Jules version is my favorite). I was kinda silly-happy when they played that one. They had great energy onstage. It was a yelling, screaming, head banging good time.
You know it was a good show when you leave the venue with no voice, ringing ears, a lost left contact, and a bigger fan of the band than when you walked in.
