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.

TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW!!!!! #jmascis #THEBEST

A photo posted by Null Skateboards (@null_skateboards) on Nov 11, 2014 at 11:22pm PST

I’ll just start by saying that on Friday I had the tune “Listen To Me” stuck in my head all day. Although it isn’t my favorite J Mascis song I hoped he played it. He opened with it Friday night. All day Saturday I had “Thumb” stuck in my head with the same hope. He opened with it Saturday night. It just gets better from there. The opening act Luluc was alright. A little mellow and simple for me, but a decent fit and the crowd liked them. The setlists had some overlap, but most of the songs he played both nights were songs I really wanted to hear twice (or every night). Alone, Ammaring, Get Me, Me Again, Every Morning, Drifter, Heal The Star. Actually, he played rocking versions of Drifter leading into Heal The Star both nights. They were my favorites both nights. Friday night had Little Fury Things, Out There (which was insane!) and closed with The Wagon. Saturday had Quest and ended with Just Like Heaven. Both nights were spectacular. They raised the stage for Saturday’s show so shorter people (not me) could see J better which was nice. What an awesome couple of nights. Thanks Larimer Lounge, there is a reason why I consider you my favorite venue.

The MURDER CITY DEVILS!

A photo posted by Null Skateboards (@null_skateboards) on Nov 11, 2014 at 10:05pm PST

I never saw Murder City Devils back in the day. I had tickets to see them open for At The Drive-In, but being the Texans that ATDI are they rolled their van in the snow and the show was cancelled (well I later found out that MCD still played, but at a different venue). So here we are several years later with a chance to see them. They just put out a new album that I think is great. So it’s kind of funny to be excited to hear the older classic songs I’ve never heard and want to hear the new songs as well.

Zach and I braved the cold and got there early enough to see the opening band Dragondeer. They play some breed of blues music. They had talent and played well, but it didn’t really hype us up or anything.

Several more friends showed shortly before 10 when MCD went on. They opened with the new tune “I Don’t Want To Work For Scum Anymore”. It was loud quickly and Spencer walked right off the stage into the crowd screaming the lyrics. It was an intense and awesome way to start the set. He stayed on the stage for the rest of the show which was a good mixture of old tunes with a few new ones sprinkled in. The setlist was pretty similar to this one I found on the web except they closed with Murder City Riot. Which is kind of funny because the lyrics repeatedly sayd “been up drinking all night” and yet the show was over at 11pm. I for one was grateful though and it seemed like a lot of the older crowd was as well. It was a great show. It was nice seeing a band still doing it. Still making great music, still touring, looking healthy (it’s funny getting older and wanting to see bands look healthy rather then wasted like when you saw them at 20 something) and doing things right. Kudos MCD, you guys rule.

I just started getting into this band and they have a lot of potential for me so I was hyped for this show. On top of that I won free tickets through the Larimer Lounge email list. Cool! Zach and Fuzz joined and we got there near the end of the Disco Doom set. Doh, they sounded like they might be pretty good. The next band was AAN. I have nothing good to say about them other then the singer had a decent voice. Creative Adult played relatively early on a very uncrowded Tuesday night. They killed it! Sonically they were amazing. The songs sounded perfect and they rattled off songs quickly. Visually there wasn’t a whole lot to look at for such a heavy band, but whatevs, they played great.

Lastly, Fuzz poured an entire beer on my shoe. Just because they are corporate scum shoes. What a jerk.

On a cold night I headed to Zach & Amy’s to pick them up and head to Denver to see RFTC. On the way there I stopped to get gas and was confronted by an obviously wasted-Broncos-jersey-wearing-sports-bar enthusiast. He told me I would be giving him a ride home and got in my car. Great. He kept trying to hand me money though. I accepted $20 just cause, but when he kept trying to give me more I declined. I’ve been there before. Except I’m normally cheap no matter what, but anyways yeah, got $20 to give a dude a ride for a few blocks.

Zach and Amy kept buying me drinks. It helped get through the first band called Snake Rattle Rattle Snake. They had a great drummer that was entertaining to watch and some of the songs in the middle of the set were decent, but for the most part I was not interested.

The crowd at this show was awesome. Lots of older dudes. Ric, Lindsey, Betcher, etc. Most were complaining about how late the show was. Ha. Rocket played a great set spanning their entire collection. I thought the newer stuff sounded really good live and of course the old stuff did. As usual, Speedo was very happy to be on stage and the whole band seemed to be having fun. Except maybe when Speedo talked for a good 5 minutes about a trip to Colorado many moons ago when half of the band got jumped by some teenagers. Great show though. Saw a setlist here.

I had originally planned on skipping this show. Mainly because Dinosaur Jr was only the opening act and I did not care for the headliner in any way (Phoenix). Plus tickets were nearly $60. So I manned up and begged for a spot on the guestlist. It didn’t seem like it was gonna work as I didn’t hear anything for a few weeks. But low and behold, one day before the concert I get an email that I’m on the list. Whewoo!!! So I skipped Sebadoh at the Larimer (still regretting that one a little) and then found out that since the forecast had called for rain the concert had been moved to the 1st Bank Event Center in Broomfield. Say what? Turns out it NEVER RAINED too. Oh well. The Broomfield Event center actually ended up being pretty cool and the sound was surprisingly good. This may have something to do with Dinosaur Jr not being able to play as loud as they wanted to. There were more old people in the crowd rockin’ Dinosaur Jr shirts then I would have thought, but the young crowd was definitely mostly there to see Phoenix. Dinosaur opened with one of my favorites, Thumb. At that point I already knew it was worth the price of admission. Ha ha, it was free! Free free free! They went on to play their typical greatest hits set:

Thumb
Budge
Watch The Corners
Rude
Out There
Feel the Pain
The Wagon
Freakscene
Just Like Heaven
a Deep Wound song

As expected the set seemed ridiculously short for them. My favorite song was Watch The Corners. It went off huge. That song hangs with their best. I’m not sure why Murph wasn’t there either, but whoever filled in on drums did a great job. It seemed like for the most part the Phoenix fans were into DJR, but I did hear one “This is the worst band I have ever heard”. Ha. I left immediately after Dinosaur Jr. Well, immediately after buying a new Dinosaur Jr shirt for my collection that is! Then I went skating with old guy friends and had a blast. This was my first sober Dinosaur Jr show since like 1998. Wow.

The Mighty LZA and I were in Montreal to celebrate our 15th anniversary. We looked into concerts while we were there and were hyped to see that Woods was playing. We got tickets ahead of time and everything. We both like their latest album Bend Beyond quite a bit, although we hadn’t actually purchased it yet. Rather then rent bikes, take a cab, take the metro or anything reasonable, Liz decided we should walk there. Of course. Ugh. By the time we finally got near the venue lets just say we deserved a little sangria!

We got to the venue pretty early and found some seats that we claimed as ours the whole night. Il Motore seemed rad. The crowd (and it seems all of Montreal?) was really young. The first band was a two piece called The Nymphets. Lady drummer and a dude that played the guitar fast. It was good, decent, basic rock ‘n roll. Parquet Courts were along that line too. It seemed they had two types of songs. Black Lips inspired songs or Pavement inspired songs. We laughed. They are good though. The faster songs went off live and the crowd was really into them. Last up was Woods. They were incredible. The thing we liked the most about them is they are original. The setlist was full of their hits and songs from Habitat videos (ha). Really though, they were great and I’m now an official fan.

The Thermals are a special band. A band that realizes their niche and keeps at it. John and I both love the new album and headed down the Bluebird on a nice Saturday night. Things were off to a good start when I found a parking spot directly across the street. We missed the first band. The Builders And The Butchers were the first band we saw. At first I thought they might be pretty good and it seemed like they had quite a few people there to see them. Instead after a few songs John and I were both over it. I don’t even know what you would call their style of music. Some type of loud folk music that had us looking at our phones to see how much longer they would play. I’ll give them credit for entertaining drummers though. Yes, plural.

The Thermals came out and went right into two great fuzzy lofi songs off the new album quickly making us forget about that previous band. They went on to play several songs from their latest album, a lot from Blood Body and a good mix of the rest. The songs were all played loud and fast. The band was as tight as I’ve ever seen. This is the first time I’ve seen the current drummer and well, he’s hilarious. At one point he stage dived into the crowd. I’m sure some hipsters frowned on him showing his excitement, but for me it’s part of the nerdy attraction of The Thermals. They are good people, play simple music well and have fun on stage. It’s awesome and so was their set.

This band was at the top of my must see list. Mainly because I love their music, but also because I’ve heard they put on one hell of a live show. So when they announced they were playing on my 40th birthday in DC where I’ve owed my homie Josh a trip for years it was on. Bernie signed up for the trip too and the three of us showed up at the Black Cat before the doors to upstairs were open. We were in high spirits and got to meet the band and chat a little. I made a song request of Dream Smotherer. The song that changed me from fan to fanatic. White Lung was the opener. Bernie liked them, but Josh and I were happy when their short set ended.

Pissed Jeans hit the stage and opened with Dream Smotherer. Oh man. And it just got better from there. They only played newer songs from Honeys and King Of Jeans. The material from Honeys was insanely intense. Romanticize Me, In Vain and Bathroom Laughter almost made my head explode. The band was giving it their all. Matt Korvette is a lunatic on the stage and it rules. Saluting flags, swinging his legs around, climbing the wall with his hands on the ground and feet on the wall, standing completely still during Cafeteria Food, rocking a hilarious mohawk, a million things that made amazing music even more enjoyable to watch. The guitarist Brad was rocking out super hard too. They seriously killed it. Their closer was False Jesii Part 2 and they seemed like they had finally ran out of energy. It was a short, but sweet set. They came back out on different instruments and messed around a bit starting off Boring Girls before bringing in a random fan from the crowd, pulled his pants down and gave him the mic. He didn’t really know the words, but the crowd did. Then the guitar switched to a fan and it just kind of fell apart into this hilarious noisy mess where the only original band member still on stage was the drummer. Then it was over. Amazing show. Not sure where it fits in my all time list, but it was pretty darn epic and I’m so glad I was able to finally see them.

After the show the band was at the merch booth again so I asked for a photo op. Sean decided it would be funny to stand right in front of me for the photo. So funny.

Once again, so funny.

“Thanks for coming to our show” – Matt Korvette. Sure thing. It’s always cool when you meet a band and they are nicer then you would think. Thanks to Pissed Jeans, Bernie and Josh for making my 40th Bday so awesome!

A few days ago I got an email saying ‘Reply now with your name for chances to win tickets to Afghan Whigs at the Ogden Theater ..” so I did. Turns out I would win a pair. Prior to winning the tickets I had no intention of going to see them even though their first album Up In It is one of my all time favorites. I lost interest in them in the mid 90’s when they changed from a grunge band to a rock band. They had a lot of success and I respect that. I knew going into the show that I probably wouldn’t hear much of the old Afghan Whigs that I loved. And well, free tickets! Can’t beat that.

The first band was The Knew from Denver. They were decent enough, even good at times. Brian and Denise showed up and Brian immediately began talking shit about how this show was going to blow away the Dinosaur Jr show a couple weeks ago. For me I knew that this wasn’t even a possibility, but I did want to at least be impressed and surprised by the Whigs. Well, that didn’t happen. I’ll try to sugar coat how I really felt about the show. The song ‘Gentlemen’ was good. I will give them that, it rocked, they played it well. They played a lot of other songs off of Gentlemen that I recognize from late nights with Liz as she used to put this cd on a lot. That kind of stoked me out. But most songs were super mellow and the grunge of old was not there at all. They had three people playing guitars and half the time you could hear a cello over them. At on point Greg Dulli said “That’s why we have three guitars!” and it made me laugh. Which leads me to some other great Greg Dulli quotes from the night. Upon seeing someone texting in the front he said “Hey no texting up front. That’s why you aren’t getting any pussy!” The last song he ripped off the Beatles for a bit with the “She loves you yeah yeah yeah” and turned it into “Hey ladies if your man doesn’t love you come back stage after the show and I’ll love you.” Ugh, that’s some serious ego rock star crap that I don’t like to hear. But I love a band where the singer never even speaks between songs so who am I to judge.

It seems like the majority of the crowd enjoyed the show. Although Brian (a much bigger fan of them then me) did lean over and say “I eat my words” and Zach wasn’t very hyped either. I can’t say I’m glad I went even though the tickets were free. I did play some Up In It songs this morning though so it couldn’t have been the worst show.