The Essex Green & Camera Obscura at the 9:30 Club 1/22/07

I didn't do the setlists, as I am... not a big enough fan to have memorized the songs. I am a failure as a Merge fanboy. I apologize. Luckily, I have one friend who was there and could do that.

THE ESSEX GREEN
Hanging On a Line (Ladybug Transistor)
The Pride
Don't Know Why (You Stay)
Snakes in the Grass
Rue De Lis
This Isn't Farm Life
Chartiers
Places You Call Home (Ladybug Transistor)
The Late Great Cassiopia
Sin City
Elsinore
Older Guys (Flying Burrito Brothers)
Cardinal Points

CAMERA OBSCURA
Eighties Fan
Come Back Margaret
I Love My Jean
The False Contender
Tears For Affairs
Lemon Juice And Paper Cuts
Let's Get Out of This Country
Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken
If Looks Could Kill
Suspended From Class
Dory Previn
I Need All the Friends I Can Get
Razzle Dazzle Rose
ENCORE
Country Mile
Teenager

So Monday at work, I was told that The Essex Green and Camera Obscura would be playing the 9:30 club tonight, and that a couple of my friends were going. I actually hadn't seen either of them before, so I was in. I was in it to win it, as a certain person who won't be president would say. It was the first time I'd been to the new smoke-free 9:30, and I liked it. You could smell the food (which I liked), although you could also smell the ass in the leather jacket who loved cologne. So, um, it was a different experience from having to wash all your clothes because it was so smoke-y there.

As for the actual bands, they both started on time(!) and there was no local opener. It was strange. I guess I just have an inflated sense of importance for bands I like. I don't feel like The Essex Green should be the first band at pretty much any show, unless it's a Merge band show. Even then, I'd stick The Broken West there, just because they're the new guys and should be hazed for a while.

The Green played pretty much everything I was hoping for (well, they played The Late Great Cassiopia, which was the only thing I knew they had to play, since if they didn't play Don't Know Why (You Stay), they would have failed in their duty as musicians), and were lots of fun. Late Great was different from the album version, but was still such a great song. They were much more up tempo than most of Camera Obscura's set.

Which wasn't bad at all, but just that I think that only with their most recent album have they actually started to put out music that seems like it would get people excited at a show. And If Looks Could Kill isn't a song that could get you excited, you should get your pacemaker checked, grandpa! Do I get my rock critic cliche card now? I was disappointed also that the two song encore was both so quiet and so short. Seriously, WTF? You need to rock the audience. Rock them. It should be like in Guitar Hero II when people are chanting for Freebird and you play it for them. Even though seriously, they're still mocking you. Admittedly, Camera Obscura isn't quite the band to Freebird-heckle, but the encore was just eh, when it should have been more exciting. Also, it would have helped had I worn more comfortable shoes, since my feet were starting to hurt towards the end of the set. That's my fault, though, and shouldn't really detract from what was an ultimately fun evening of Mergerockpower.