After a short, but tiring session on campus Carleigh and I went to Community Cycles to see Black Dots open for a couple Chicago bands. It was pretty awesome that it was so low key at a bike shop and the Chicago bands had promise so we stuck around. Black Dots were great as usual, well, maybe even better. They seemed more rockin’ and lively on stage. We even got to hear a new song that killed it.

The second band was BUST! They had the fastest drummer I have ever seen. They played fast and energetic music and looked like they were having a blast. I couldn’t get enough of watching the drummer though, he seriously killed the drums.

And the drummer is clearly a huge fan of Max. Awesome!

The last band was called The Please & Thank Yous. They were also better than expected. Not as fast as Bust, but still rocking and awesome. They had their new album on cassette only. None of us have tape players. Ha. Thank you Black Dots for playing with all these awesome bands and exposing me to new stuff.

Liz and I are fully on the bike program these days so of course we biked to the Bright Eyes show. It’s the first show we’ve ever biked to.

Which comes in pretty handy when they are putting Pabst in glass and Fat Tire in plastic. Not that we had very many of those though. We did learn a new trick which is to go into the external bar through the door near the restrooms and save a few bucks on a beer. Hyped!

The first band was Omaha’s Conduits. They proved that they were from Omaha by being almost amazing, but trying to hard to hold back rocking out and therefore being pretty boring. This is such a typical characteristic of smaller bands from Omaha. Haven’t you learned anything from the likes of Bright Eyes, Cursive and The Faint? It’s just fine to rock out sometimes! Anyways, they were decent for sure, but there is so much more potential.

Next up was Bright Eyes and the theater had gotten pretty crowded. They came out sounding good and played a lot off I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning and Digital Ash. They were great. For awhile. The crowd wasn’t helping. People yelling cat calls and “I Love You Conor” during quiet songs suck. Seriously, you jerks took the show down several levels.

Although I have to admit the mixed signals from the man in charge didn’t help. Conor was clearly wasted by the end of the set, talking about how he wants to be a party band, wearing a funny hat he picked up that day and went on a 10+ minute drunken rap about the members of the band. Yes, I said “rap”. I think it’s great how much Conor values the members of this band, but this was overkill. No one else on stage was partying. Liz and I have seen Bright Eyes so many times and most of those shows he’s so wasted it kind of bums us out.

So I don’t know. I love the music of Bright Eyes. They played a great set. The sound was great. I think Conor Oberst is probably normally a great guy. But I left that show very confused about what I saw and heard. I hope he gets it figured out soon.

How do you make an epic skate trip even more epic? You start it off by seeing your favorite band put on perhaps the best show you’ve ever seen them play! Everyone here knows I’m as big of a Dinosaur Jr fan as they come and when I found out that Dinosaur Jr would be playing in Boston the first night of my skate trip my excitement went through the roof. The first two days of Boston were rain, but it didn’t even matter, we saw Dinosaur Jr!

And did I tell you that Carleigh was in Boston for a day too! Awesome. Carleigh, Joe, Pat.

Carleigh took this photo of Joe, Pat, me and Charlie. And no, I wasn’t double fisting it.

Epic Bug shirt purchased.

OFF! opened and they killed it. OG Black Flag steez.

Did I mention I’m friends with the guitarist for OFF!? Dimitri rules.

The second part of the show was Henry Rollins interviewing Dinosaur Jr. We had made a joke that you would have to drink everytime J Mascis responded with a blunt one word answer. Not the case, he and the rest of the band were on point. I’m pretty sure there are multiple times where I freaked out and was like “This is the best thing ever!”

Someone recorded and posted the interview. Without a doubt between OFF! and the interview this was the best opening for a Dinosaur Jr show ever. Top it off with good friends, a good crowd, good beers, a good venue, a great setlist (Bug) and you get ..

Quite possibly my favorite concert ever. Words cant really describe how insanely awesome I thought this show was. They played In A Jar and The Wagon before starting Bug. Bug didn’t use to be my favorite, but I’ve always thought the 1-2-3 punch of They Always Come, Yeah We Know and Let It Ride was the best three song combo on any Dinosaur Jr album. It didn’t disappoint.

Instead of Lou screaming WHY DON’T YOU LIKE ME? over and over during Don’t two dudes got on stage and screamed their lungs out. It was amazing. Carleigh took this awesome photo. They played Don’t for almost 15 minutes of pure destruction. After a short break came an encore. Lou announced, “Wouldn’t it be awesome is we played a shit load of Black Flag songs?” Then they went on to play Out There and The Lung. Ha ha J Mascis is one hilarious dude. Indeed one of the best shows I’ve ever seen and I haven’t stopped listening to Bug since.

After some pizza at the Backcountry Pizza place most of Trick Factory went to Astroland to see Black Dots.  None of us had been there before.  Turns out that place rules.  Just a warehouse, BYOB, DIY steez.  Love it. I was feeling kinda sick so I went with some Ginger Ale with a bit of whiskey in it. Yum.

The first act was Lizzie Huffman. She was great. Like really great. Super mellow acoustic music with some revealing lyrics about relationships or drinking or both. Good stuff. I apparently didn’t take a great cell phone shot of the next act. It was a solo guy called Disorder maybe? He had some good crowd support.

At first glance it looked like the Brandow’s were grabbing pills from a bag. Turned out to be ear plugs.

Next up was a punk band from Pittsburgh called “Run, Forever”. They were super good. During the first song us old guys (and Carleigh) nodded to each other saying we liked it. There was a mosh pit going and us old guys were not in it. After the first song Brian announced “Votes are in, old guys like it!” I added, “But we’ll be in the back”. Maybe somebody laughed. These guys killed it though. Straight forward old school rock ‘n roll. They had t-shirts (no XL), patches, records and an amazing black/yellow minibus. Best of luck to that band.

Last up was Black Dots. John kept thanking everyone for staying out so late like it was a week night or something. It made me laugh. It’s saturday night! Whew! I have been listening to their cd a lot lately so this is their first show where I new most of the words. That added to the enjoyment of an already great show. And the Guided By Voices cover is always great. But the Neil Young song to close it down was the best I’ve heard them play it. So insane. When is that “In a Jar” cover coming guys? Ha. Great show.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that Astroland is my favorite venue in Colorado now. Host more shows please!

My third in show in little over a week. Also the third show in a row I didn’t have even a single beer. Weird. Anyways, Liz and I rolled in shortly before the opening band Free Energy. I had heard nothing about them before listening to some songs of theirs on myspace early that day. After what I heard I should have known better, but we don’t like just seeing only one band.This band was bad. Really really bad. Somehow they had a large following.Lots of them wore headbands.Or they were parents.Even some Ultimate Fighters in the house. It was seriously the weirdest crowd.Killing some time during the sucking we rolled back to the merch booth and noticed their name was wrong on their own 7 inch. That’s funny! The scary part was that the members of Titus Andronicus came out to play the Springsteen cover with Free Engery and it was also really bad. Liz and I were definitely a bit worried for Titus at that point.Titus Andronicus eventually arrived on stage. It started about as epic as one can imagine. A drunken fan recited the opening speech from The Monitor and stage dived into the crowd as the band exploded into “A More Perfect Union”. I haven’t witnessed a band get on stage and blow me away that quickly in a long time. The giant turd left in the air by Free Engery was defeated immediately. Thank god. Titus Andronicus went on to play one of the best shows I have ever seen. Tons of energy throughout, great setlist, great stage presence, it was loud, the sound was good, the crowd was very into it, everything you need for a great show. They came off more punk rock then I would have thought with lots of fist pumping anthems being yelled by the crowd. The ender “Four Score And Seven” was so intense and powerful that I actually hoped the show was done. No encore. That song burned the house down. Totally epic set.Lastly, sorry once again for the crappy cell phone photos. But if I brought my nice camera I’d feel obligated to spend my time trying to get the perfect photo instead of just enjoying the show.

The kids were staying over at a friends so Liz and I decided to go to this show.  After eating some good BBQ with TF and watching the Nuggets win we headed to Denver with Carleigh.  We got into the show about the time the opening band Cannon started.  They ended up being really good.  They were pretty heavy indie rock at times, somewhat metal at other times.  Next up was Lion Sized which was the only band I had seen before.  I liked them a lot the first time I saw them, but this time they kinda let me down.  The music is a lot like Hot Snakes, but it just didn’t do it for any of us this time.The headlining band was called Tauntaun.  We had never heard of them. We figured if they sucked or were even just mediocre we’d leave so we could get to sleep early.   They started the show by cranking the fog machine up so much that Liz left the front room.  Ha.  Within the first song it was pretty clear that they were awesome.  Really awesome.  I don’t like much metal, but this was incredible.  It reminded me of classic metal.  Sabbath, Maiden, Priest and Motorhead with a bit of grunge thrown in to make it completely incredible.  It was so good that Liz liked it, and she hates most metal.  It was also so good that I bought a Tauntaun t-shirt and record.  Check them out, they rule.

The Mighty LZA and I have been married 11 years now.  What better way to celebrate our anniversary then to go out for dinner in Denver then go see the Thermals?  Seriously, the Thermals!  One of our favorite bands and one of the funnest bands to see live.  I accidently called Kathy ‘Karen’ and felt like a total idiot.  Luckily she’s super nice and didn’t beat me up.  There’s a great story behind this photo, but I can’t tell it yet.Chad and Chris’s art school buddies Earl and Kit were there.  Kit got kicked out for smoking at the start of the Thermals set.  Ha ha don’t you know smoking sucks!  Luckily he pulled off being a roadie for the middle band and got back in.Greg Harbour’s twin was there.  I’m talking Greg from a few years ago before he started dieing his hair.You don’t see shades on the back of a head in hipster bingo.The first band was Point Juncture, WA.  They were pretty good.  A bit too mellow at times for me, but the rockin’ stuff was really good.  The next band was Shaky Hands.  They were from Portland too.  They were boring and unoriginal.The Thermals finally played to a very enthusiastic crowd.  People were going nuts and everyone was smiling and having a blast.  It was seriously some of the most hyped on a band I’ve seen a crowd in a long time.  The setlist was a mixture of new and old, heavy on the new.  I wanted to hear the new stuff so this was perfect.They opened with ‘Returning To The Fold’ then went into ‘I Let It Go’.  After that I’m not so sure, but here’s a list of what I think I remember which is NOT in order.Returning To The FoldI Let It GoIt’s TriviaNo Culture IconsA Passing Feeling Back To GreyHow We KnowSappy (Nirvana cover)Here’s Your FuturePillar Of SaltTest PatternSt Rosa & The SwallowsWe Were SickNow We Can SeeI Called Out Your NameWhen I Was AfraidHow We FadeYou Dissolve Encore was:I Hold The SoundEverything Thermals I might be missing one or two or messed it up.  Either way that’s close enough.  All of the new stuff sounded super good.  The crowd completely freaked out to Here’s Your Future.   The ground up front at the Marquis shakes when people get jumping and at times it felt like I was on a trampoline.  Awesome.  I completely loved every song, but my stand out favorites were “How We Fade”, “When I Was Afraid”, “I Called Out Your Name”, “Test Pattern” (never heard it played before), “St Rosa & The Swallows”, “Here’s Your Future”, “Pillar of Salt” (yes pretty much the whole set) and of course “Sappy” was an awesome surprise.  I think they played “I Let It Go” too early in the set because it’s probably my favorite song on the new album and the sound wasn’t dialed in yet.  Oh well though, excellent excellent show.  I like that they don’t have the extra guitarist anymore and I think Hutch gave his best delivery I’ve seen.  Kathy was on point once again driving the bass the way she does.  They are so fun live!  Everything Thermals!

Aaron Betcher’s band O’er The Ramparts played the first Null premiere back in July of 2004.  Man that seems like forever ago.  Anyways, he’s in another band called Magic Mice and Brian, Jason and I went to check out a show of theirs in Boulder.Should have known Rick would be there, but I didn’t expect those shoes!  The first band was a couple ladies singing with a glass of wine and an acoustic guitar.  It wasn’t bad, not my cup of tea though.  Brian was the only one texting more than me.  Magic Mice came on shortly and played a pretty rockin’ set.  Brian told me the Westword mentioned Dinosaur Jr as one of their influences or something.  That can never be a bad thing and there was definitely some sick guitar solos and distortion.  For the most part though they reminded me of good garage rock and I really enjoyed it.  Check out their myspace page HERE.An old man laughing at at old man!  Ha.  The guy in the background was having a ball and dancing it up.  You can’t really see from the photo, but he was getting jiggy.  Rick approved.  The best part was when he stood next to a pregnant lady and stuck out his belly.  Golden material there.If I ever get serious about concert reviews maybe I’ll actually start getting within 20 feet of the band when taking photos.Up next was a horrible band named Ego Vs Id.  Some Boulder band I guess.  How embarrasing.  They could play their instruments well enough, but it was cocky jam lets get chicks crap.  We left.