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 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.

First and foremost, read a well written and great review here on the Westword site (where the above photo is from). I was more nervous for this show then I have been for any show in a long time. It was like the perfect storm of anxiety and I was a mess leading up to this show. So as soon as Liz and I hit the Goosetown Tavern for dinner the beer started flowing. We met up with some homies (Tom, Fuzz, John, Chad, CJ, Darin) and pre-partied until about the time the opening band went on stage. Turns out Shearwater pretty good. It’s always nice having a decent opening act.

Then came Dinosaur Jr. Gulp. They opened with See It On Your Side which is the last song on Sky. It was rad, but the sound was weird. They didn’t really get the sound fixed all night. They didn’t sound as awesome as normal, but they were actually playing pretty awesome. The Bluebird sound guy sucked it up. With all that said it was still an awesome show. They played six songs off the new album and a slew of Dinosaur classics including Sludgefeast which is my favorite live song ever. I probably drank too much. It seemed whenever I was almost finished with a beer someone (normally Fuzz) would hand me a beer and say “It’s your night man enjoy!” So awesome. Thanks to everyone for making it such a fun night and if you didn’t already know Dinosaur Jr is the greatest band of all time.

There were several reasons to bail on this show. First, I was on call for work. Second, the presidential debates were in Denver and they had been warning people for weeks not to come near Denver on this night. Third, I have been feeling pretty run down and fighting a cold. But the main reason to go to this show is the completely awesome and underrated Henry Clay People. I seriously love this band and their latest album Twenty-Five For The Rest Of Our Lives is their best effort yet. I really wanted to hear it live!

It seems like everyone used excuse #2 as I arrived before Chad, Dean and Fuzz and was literally the only person there while they did a sound check. Weird, but totally awesome because I got to mention a few songs I wanted to hear. An hour and a few more people later they went on stage. Even though the crowd was lacking they played a high energy set that pretty much ruled my world. All my favorites and left me with a new found respect for the song ‘Anymore/ Any Less’. I am super hyped on this show. I know it kinda sucked for them not pulling in a big crowd, but for me as a fan wow. It was like they played a personal set in my living room or something. It ruled. Please support this band!

Henry Clay People website.

The Mighty LZA and I were hyped for this show. Me especially. All day I sat around waiting for show time to start. Ok, well that was mostly because I had diarrhea and didn’t have a choice. Either way things worked out for the evening and after a super yummy dinner at Buenos Aires Pizzeria we went to the venue early. We were there really early it turns out. Early enough that I went and counted the Null stickers in the mens room. There were two of them. I doubled that and the opening band hit the stage. School Knights are from Denver apparently. Pretty clever name I tell you. They put on a good show. I had heard from John that they were horrible, but clearly he had the wrong band in mind as they were good. Mr Dream was really good. Total old style bass heavy rock like Jesus Lizard a bit. Both singers for that band had amazing voices.

Cloud Nothings came on and immediately went into the new material that’s been getting favorable reviews from the critics. The reason of course is because it’s really good. The opening song was “Stay Useless” and it set the bar high for the set. A few songs later they went into (what I consider song of the year so far) “Wasted Days”. This song destroyed in ways I didn’t think this band was capable of. The drummer is amazing to watch. He would hit the drums so hard. He would even stomp the foot pedals like he was killing them. It added a lot to the show. The end of “Wasted Days” was incredible. I thought they would have trouble maintaining that much energy throughout the set, but I was wrong. The last song was “No Future / No Past” and they started it with a rockin’ 4-5 minute jam that went right into it. So sick. Totally an amazing show. I’m sold on them.

After the show I went to show my support by buying a t-shirt. Well mr singer Dylan Baldi was at the merch booth and told me that the shirts run big so I bought a size large shirt. Of course when I got home it didn’t fit at all. Never listen to a hipster. Especially one that doesn’t know I’ve been working out a few times a week lately and related to the strongest man in the world. Oh well, I’ll forgive him.

I’ll start by saying Mudhoney is one of my all time favorite bands. It’s been several years since I’ve seen them play and my excitement level was very high. Especially since I’ve never heard anything off of The Lucky Ones live and it’s become my favorite album of theirs.

The first band was Purple Fluid. They were young and the twin brothers in the band are the son of Rick Kulwicki, the member of the Fluid that died a few years ago. The show was a benefit for the them. With the exception of the glam kid that didn’t seem to fit into the band at all I thought they were great. Later on Mark Arm would thank them for opening and said how proud their dad would have been. Awesome.

This show had the most gray hair I’ve ever seen at one show. At one point the singer for The Fluid announced that he wrote a song for his daughter when she was born. Then said that she was at the show and she was now 25. I guess that explains the gray hair everywhere! The Fluid played a long set. I wasn’t that impressed. Zach was though and he’s in a band so we’ll say that The Fluid was great. Ha.

Mudhoney came out and completely ruled it. The start of the set was mostly early stuff. Superfuzz Bigmuff and the s/t album with some other classics mixed in. I was kinda worried they wouldn’t play anything off The Lucky Ones. Luckily near the end of the set Mark Arm put away the pedals and set down the guitar and they went into several off of the Lucky Ones. Stoked! They have such a great stage presence. At one point a water bottle was thrown onstage and Mark Arm held it down in field goal position for bassist Guy Maddison to kick it back into the crowd. Mudhoney completely killed it. It’s gonna be hard to top this show in 2012.