How long was I waiting in dramatic anticipation of the Jenny Owen Youngs/ Jukebox the Ghost show last Friday? Because of the advent of Twitter, I can pinpoint it down to the minute: 5:43pm on March 18th. I'm not sure if I like that level of documentation on my mental state, but it is handy for times like this.Anyways, it's been a while. And especially since there's been a dearth of good live music in Dallas, with that level of focused waiting I was pretty worried that it wouldn't live up to the hype in my mind. But it totally did! And not just for a couple of reasons. More like 16 reasons. Starting from the top:
Jenny Owen Youngs is awesome. No, seriously, so awesome. Even with the terrible sound system at the Prophet Bar (which is so, so terrible, you guys. I have yet to go to a show there that didn't have major sound problems) she rocked the house. Not only did she open with my favorite song of hers in the whole world (Voice on Tape), she played the three best tracks off her new album and still had time for 'Drinking Song.' Plus, she dealt with that absolutely bizarre crowd (more on that later) with aplomb.
Jukebox the Ghost is really impressive live. I'd totally like to lie and pretend that I knew who they were before the show was booked, but let's keep the blog honest. I bought the tickets just because of Youngs and didn't have a clue who they were. Instead, I had to play internet catch-up on their MySpace page to at least hear some of their music before I went to the show so I wouldn't be completely out of the loop, since they were joint-headlining.
But in cool twist of luck, they're firmly in my musical taste wheelhouse: Piano, drums, and guitar with a lot of quirky lyrics and hooks thrown about liberally. Think Ben Folds, only with a more electronic and grandious sound. Plus, lots of talk about the apocalypse and the Antichrist. I actually ended up buying their album before the show, it's so catchy.
And they're even better live - they've got that sort of jam-band type of feel that makes them 100 times cooler in person because the product is similar to what you expect, but they really dig in to every song. They're excellent performers - I'd put them right up there with Regina Spektor and Steel Train in terms of musicians I've seen who are way better live vs. their recorded album.
Oh man, and can I talk for a second about the complete insanity that was the audience? This is broken down into many parts. One: the crowd was way smaller than I expected (which meant we could get an awesome view of the stage despite sitting back at the bar during the opening bands). Two: even though the crowd was small, there were two genuinely crazy people in the audience - a strange man who was full-out dancing right in front of the stage during Jenny's set (doing a modified version of The Twist, even during the slower songs), and a similarly excited girl who shouted during a lull between songs "I love your prose!" Which is one of the stranger things I've heard as far as audience-to-live-band compliments go.
Three: I'm almost sure we were the oldest people in the audience who were there for the show itself, and not there as chaperon/ride home for some of the kids up front. In fact, a pretty thorough examination of the people around us yielded only 6 people who had wristbands allowing them to drink. This in-and-of itself is not crazy, but I'm guessing the lowered age-level removed some of the jaded concert-fiend feel to the show, because these kids were rocking out. I mean, at one point during the combined bands portion of the show, Jenny said something like "Now this is a dance song, so you guys need to be dancing," and oh-my-sweet-lord how they took up that challenge with vigor. I love an audience that does more than just stand there and one that actively dances around crazily is like concentrated joy.
Other things that were very cool:
- That I got to say hi to Jenny Owen Youngs
- That I got to buy a tour poster and a vinyl album from her with recordings of the two combined songs that she and Jukebox did together (the best part of the show)
- That she and her band came out and danced along with the audience during the last couple of Jukebox songs
- That the two supporting guitarists with Jenny did an interpretive tambourine dance during the Jukebox/Jenny combined song (Highlight of the night)
- That the bartender interpreted "SoCo and Coke" to mean "A glassfull of SoCo with a tiny splash of Coke"
- That Devon (the friend I conned into coming with me) managed to endure the crazy dancing guy's awkwardness without having to leave the room
Other things that were not cool:
- (Again) the soundboard at the bar (the worst)
Yeah, so: totally awesome show.
-------------------
The rest of the weekend was consumed by a graduation party for the boyfriend's best friend, followed by a whole lot of sleeping. Which was pretty sweet itself, but involved little that was noteworthy. So definitely a good couple of days.
1 comment:
Post a Comment