Decemberists Show

Wow. I got pretty lucky with this one. This morning when I woke up, I had "On the Bus Mall" in my head, so I played it. Ashley asked who sang that song, so I replied "The Decemberists." She said "Oh, hey, they have a concert coming up sometime soon." I was all like "around here" then she was like "ya, and Melissa's going." I asked her to find out more about it and get back to me. I saw her by chance when I was dismounting my bike @ school today and she told me that it was tonight at The Moon. I found out a little more, got my free FSU student ticket, rock.

After meeting up with her this morning at school, I realized that I didn't have my 9am class...it was canceled and I forgot. I was kinda pissed, because my next class was at 1:25 and I could have slept for a lot longer. Upon reflection, however, I might not have known about the concert had I remembered that I could sleep in.

Anywho, I picked Ashley up and we met Melissa et al. at the show. BTW, I saw E. Claire there with her friend Erin. The opening band was "My Brightest Diamond." The lead singer woman has a pretty incredible voice. Kinda weird music. It didn't grab me enough to make me buy a CD.

The Decemberists opened with The Crane Wife Part 3, just like the new album. They are good live. All skilled musicians who can play all kinds of instruments. They had a bunch of music-making-things there that I'd never seen before. All of the special effect sounds were made with actual instruments (occasionally through some distortion pedals). Their set started around 10 and they said that they would play the last song at 10:55. That last song (which nobody seemed to recognize) lasted until 11:15. They walked off stage, came back for an encore, played some song I didn't know, then closed the night with the Mariner's Revenge Song. Talk about badass...they had a whale costume thing that came out on stage. It was evil looking with red glowing eyes.

They played a lot off the new album (as is to be expected at concerts, huh?). I haven't listened to the Crane Wife so much. Older stuff played included: "The Infanta" and "The Legionnaire's Lament." Both of those songs were really high energy.

I would DEFINITELY go see them again if they come anywhere near close.
What a great, unanticipated birthday present.