Los Campesinos! at 9:30 Club 8/5

I hadn't seen them before, and in fact, was introduced to them at around the same time I was introduced to the Wombats (who, I must admit, I still kinda prefer) by MBG and they were Quite Good and worth listening to. But I heard they were playing, and Ms. Albright bought me a ticket after her ticket was purchased by her friend). So I was going, and it was an early show on a weekday (YAY!). We skipped the openers, who may or may not have been good (one of the guitarists from The Farmers! was wearing a shirt from Girls. Anyway, we did the "hipster" thing and showed up about ten minutes before the main show started, but MBG just kept driving by parking spots, so we got in there about two minutes before Los Campesinos! went on.

We were pretty far back, which was nice, because they were very loud. Quite good, although their new couple of songs kinda dragged the middle of the set a little. And they didn't play Don't Tell Me To Do the Math(s), possibly my favorite of their songs. Still, when they started the big buildup and then broke into the one two punch of Box Elder (quite an excellent version of it, maybe even bettering Pavement's original) and You! Me! Dancing! (the song that competes with Math(s) for best Los Campesinos! track), the set finished out very well with a few more strong songs. As I'm not familiar with most of their stuff I can't say what else was played, but Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks, This Is How You Spell "HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes & Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics", My Year in Lists, and The International Tweexcore Underground were all very awesome. Gareth and one of the guitarists ended up in the crowd during the last couple songs and the encore, and just seemed to love playing. Stage banter was alternately hilarious and completely indecipherable (I enjoyed their joke about what an honor it was to open for Asher Roth). Basically, a great show.

But it's now time for the return of Douchebag(s) of the Concert! The four (or more, I never turned around to see all of them at once) people behind us. They wouldn't stop talking, sang out of tune and out of time to songs including starting singing well before the actual singing started multiple times, sang instrument parts like "beep beep beep", spilled a beer right behind us so my feet were sticking to the ground for most of the set, knocked into all of us multiple times, gave me a nasty look when I was saving a space for Ms. Albright and her friend and they tried to move into that space and I stopped them, made me write a run-on clause, and, most unforgivably, seemed genuinely excited when Gareth started making fun of the US for giving the world shit like Asher Roth and they thought that Asher Roth was going to come out and play his song or that Los Campesinos! would cover I Love College. So you win, Douchebags.

After the set, which went about 75 minutes long with a one song encore, we left and walked back to the car, and noticed a line. A long line. A line around the block. For Asher Roth. I am sorry for all those people at the 9:30 Club who had to deal with that crowd. In case, I'm not being clear enough, Asher Roth is a terrible, terrible person. And his fans are all bad people as well. The one good thing that he has ever done, from what I can tell, is for Los Campesinos! to be an early concert so I could be home by 10:20.