I'm supposed to be finishing my paper.
Instead, you're reading this. Last night, I saw Yo La Tengo for the first time in 6 1/2 years. That's how long it had been since their last time in Houston (and you know I don't go anywhere else). I wrote a review of YLT's 2000 show for Space City Rock. Six years ago I was underwhelmed. Last night, my favorite band in the world reminded why they've been my fave since 1993. The show was nicely balanced between lengthy psych-rock jams and brief, softly sung pop gems. They played quite a few songs from I am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, while mostly avoiding the two preceding albums (Summer Sun, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out). They did draw heavily from older records, opening with "Double Dare" from 1993's Painful, and adding "Autumn Sweater" and "We're An American Band" from I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. They even played two from 1990's Facebook.
The only crappy thing about last nights show were a few fans near the front of the stage who kept yelling during the quiet songs and acting like jerks. According to BDM, there was one fan who was yelling all night and giving the "thumbs down" signal every time the band launched into a soft-rock number. Another dude, who was standing near us actually managed to provoke Jordan into telling him to shut up. Now, you know that guy was being an ass.
Anyway, I took some photos, and they're available on my Flickr page. Unfortunately, my best photo was one I took of Times New Viking, the lackluster amateur openers.
Speaking of photos, I thought this was worth mentioning again. Last.fm
allows you to tag your Flickr photos with a unique, show-specific event
tag they give you. Then, Last.fm will automatically pull your photos
and display them on a custom page generated just for that show. The
Last.fm page for last night's Yo La Tengo show is here,
and if you scroll down you'll notice photos from the show (taken by me
and others) have already been retrieved. You can see the photos on
Flickr here. The implications of this feature are breathtaking,
if you ask me. Every show has its own page, and all the photos are in
one place. Each show page also has its own message board. For real,
Last.fm might be the most useful social networking site there is.
Comments
They are great.