The Rosebuds & British Sea Power at Black Cat 5/8

Food before show: delicious turkey burgers (really some of the best I've ever had) with chipotles, jalapeños, and onions (and probably other things) with pepper jack cheese, spinach and mustard. Great way to have dinner.

Made it to the Black Cat in time to see the beginning of a song about the Chinese Communist Revolution performed by Jeffrey Lewis. Who is an anti-folker, not Jenny Lewis in drag. Which would have been awesome instead of terrible. I stood there for a second, thought: this is terrible, and then went straight to the merch table where I purchased the Rosebuds' 2008 Tour EP. Mine had a plastic flower attached. Then I stood for a bit longer watching this interminable "song" go, and then found my friends.

I moved up for the Rosebuds, as they were the band I was there to see. And they were awesome. I didn't remember seeing that Matt McCaughan was drumming for the Rosebuds this tour, but I fully approve. He was great drumming for Portastatic, and it goes to show that the McCaughan family is talented. Playing a wide mix of stuff from their three albums save for one thing: they didn't play one single bad song. Closest they came was When the Lights Went Dim, which I would have replaced with I Better Run from Night of the Furies. Or maybe I would have had them play I'd Feel Better or Shake Our Tree, but that would have been far too much awesome for one show. Especially when it's an opener. They basically played my two or three favorite songs from each of the three albums, which is the sure sign that the setlist was fantastic:

Cemetery Lawn
Hold Hands and Fight
Bluebird
Back to Boston
Kicks in the Schoolyard
Drunkard's Worst Nightmare
Leaves Do Fall
When the Lights Went Dim
Boxcar
Get up Get Out

My only embarrassment was my ability to sing along to each song, and yet I still had problems remembering Drunkard's Worst Nightmare's title. Mainly because I forgot how long of an intro there was on the album version when I was skipping through the tracks on my iPod between sets.

After a while, and a long time of setting up plants on the stage, British Sea Power came out, and put on an amazing hour long set. Unfortunately they played for about 80 minutes, which sucked. The last twenty minutes or so was them playing feedback and attacking each other with the plant branches and getting on each other's shoulders and just messing around. By the end a large portion of the crowd left. Because it was not remotely what anyone wanted to see. Well, most of the people. Short of that last 10-15-20 minutes or whatever it was, the show was lots of fun, they played all the songs I could recognize, and basically really impressed me. Although Do You Like Rock Music? is what really made me impressed. The first two albums were sort of bland indie rocky stuff, not bad, but nothing to make me take much notice. Fixed that with the quite fun new album.

Interesting thing I noticed: Hamilton and Yan traded off vocal duties along with the bass for most of the set, with whoever was bassist not being the vocalist. This apparently changed immediately after I went back to sit down because my feet hurt. Also, Yan sort of looks like William Sanderson in Blade Runner (which I just saw the final cut of on Blu-Ray and recommend to anyone who hadn't seen it or hasn't seen the director's cut), while Hamilton looks like a mix between Mike Dunleavy, Jr. and Rocco Siffredi. Yes, that's what I was thinking about for most of the set. Sadly, once my mind decides upon something, it would take far longer than even BSP's last song for it to change.

Also, I wanted to boo BSP for not having enough copies of the most recent album at the merch table. I had to purchase from Amazon rather than you guys. Alternately, I should have just purchased it when I got the Rosebuds EP. But I talked to Kelly Crisp for a bit, told her how much the set rocked, and was again surprised by her Southern accent. Which doesn't come across in their songs much, but it really does when they are interviewed. She's an extremely nice person, but I find that most of the musicians I've met at merch tables and after shows have been very nice people. I guess if you're a dick you don't go out and have the possibility of meeting a fan.