photo by our own joshc [flickr]

Excited as I was to see The New Pornographers (one of my favorite bands) live for the first time, my socks were knocked completely off by Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond. She arrived on stage wearing what looked like a wedding dress (or was she dressed as a ballerina?) and immediately ingratiated herself to the audience by relating a charming story about an experience with the Seattle Police Department’s mounted patrol. Apparently, Becky and band mates were enjoying a piroshky on the lawn near Pike Place Market when a police officer riding a large horse presented himself beside them. Her initial reaction of awe at the majesty and power of the large creature was interrupted when it began peeing. Right next to them. For a long time. While they were eating. The story of this horse peeing, as told by the ethereal-voiced Stark, was something to behold. And then she started singing and angels descended from heaven and unicorns and a Pegasus and fairies and Leprechauns appeared out of nowhere. Then the song ended and she went back to the peeing horse story. This was the general tenor of Lavender Diamond’s performance. It was at once whimsical and funny and unbelievably beautiful. Those familiar with her probably don’t need any reminder that Stark is special. For the unfamiliar, it bears mentioning that Stark is a rare talent. Whether Lavender Diamond is the right vehicle for her remains to be seen. I do know I’ll be watching her career closely from here on out.

More after the jump.

another from josh [flickr]

Here comes the difficult part of the recap. The New Pornographers are one of my favorite bands. They’re just solid. Sometimes even brilliant. Everything about this show was what I expected - a thoroughly professional performance from a talented and seasoned band. There isn’t much I can write that hasn’t already been written and there wasn’t much in their performance that stood out as either extraordinary or worthy of criticism. Instead, I’ll just write about my experience with the crowd at the Showbox. I have a bad back right now and was relegated to sitting in the bar instead of joining the all-ages crowd on the floor where Josh, wisely it turned out, spent his night. Evidently, bar people don’t give a shit about music. Why? Because they scream loudly at one another seemingly annoyed at the performance happening on stage that is interrupting their conversation. They make out and pet heavily oblivious to the people gawking at them. They dump empty cups as if your table is their own personal garbage can. Then, thankfully, many of them are kicked out by an on-the-ball Showbox security staff (thanks guys - you saved me from an almost certain brawl!). Without giving in to hyperbole, last night’s crowd at the Showbox was probably the worst concert-going crowd I’ve ever been around. They were rude (at one point a guy standing in front of me screamed at Neko Case to “shut up and sing!”) and when they were actually paying attention they seemed totally asleep. It was thoroughly embarrassing and I hope to never experience anything like that again.

To be fair, Josh had a different experience near the stage where he said the crowd was mostly “good-to-normal” except for the first song of The New Pornographers’ encore when “a husband & wife team from the bar squeezed their way into the front to put on an oblivious dance show. He kept trying to chat up people in their wake, she was dancing wildly and almost stepping on everyone around her.”

There’s no such thing as a perfect audience, but damn Seattle, I think we can do better. If anyone else was there last night and has a comment about the show or the crowd (good or bad), I’d love to hear it.