Eddie Vedder during Pearl Jam’s sold out Key Arena show last night

Wow what a show. Not only does Pearl Jam still have what it takes to kill it at a huge venue like Key Arena, but they can do it for over 2 hours. Above all it was just a good old rock show. No fancy screens or effects, just some nice stage lighting and Pearl Jam doing what they do best. The songs were a nice mix of old and new, along with a couple from their newest album, “Backspacer”. (Speaking of “Backspacer”, if you have Rock Band you can download the entire album to play in the game as of today.) As of this morning there were still some tickets left for tonight’s show. If you are still thinking about going though you should act fast!

Here is the full set list from last night. Sounds like people are split 50/50 about what the set is going to look like tonight. I’m guessing they change it up and play a lot of older/obscure stuff along with the songs from the new album.

Set List: Long Road, Corduroy, Gonna See My Friend, Got Some, Hail Hail, Amongst The Waves, Daughter, Even Flow, Johnny Guitar, Unthought Known, World Wide Suicide, Small Town, Off He Goes, Down, Save You, The Fixer, Life Wasted

1st encore: Just Breathe w/the Octava String Quartet, The End w/ the Octava String Quartet, Inside Job, Rearviewmirror

2nd encore: Given To Fly, Do The Evolution, Better Man, The Real Me (Townshend) w/ the Syncopated Taint Horn Quartet, Indifference, Alive

For many many more pictures I took at this show, keep reading after the jump… (more…)

girl talk at the showbox; photo by me; more in the photoset [flickr]

Girl Talk is one of those acts that reminds you how fortunate it is to be in a place with a floor built on a bed of springs. Mere minutes after Greg Gillis ran onto the stage, made a round of front-row high-fives, scaled his table, and settled into his spot behind a card table decked out with plastic-wrapped laptops (”2 laptops and a pair of giant studio monitors are the new 2 turntables and a microphone.” [@asa]), the sold out crowd was putting the structure to the test. A track or two in, and the empty stage began to be filled by a not entirely unreasonable cross section of Seattleites — a low key programmer type for every two neon spectacled party kids — and a duo of jerseyed leaf blower operators who sent toilet paper, confetti, and the occasional inflatable into the house.
Really, though, the onstage spectacle of dancers, a sweaty disrobing (not a) DJ hardly stopping his bouncing while hammering away at the mix, and retro projected graphics, hardly mattered. The stacks of samples, cutting across decades of popular and obscure culture, colliding into each other, being mixed into new mental connections, and made fresh in an on-the-fly live experience made nonstop dancing entirely more compelling than people-watching. I’m sure that someone with a better ear and mind for cataloging will come up with a brainbending setlist; my favorite moments of recognitions were for classic Nirvana, Kelly Clarkson, Journey, the usual set-ending Elton John, and some new (disc of the summer) Phoenix making it into the mix. After something like an hour and a half, the show ended promptly. In the moment, stopping before midnight seemed too soon, until you realized that maybe if it went on forever people would die of dehydrated exhaustion, making the leaving while wanting more just about perfect.

get up kids playing the roseland for musicfest nw. photo by me; more in the photoset [flickr]

Last weekend Portland (a.k.a., the new Ballard) turned over some of its finest clubs to host Musicfest Northwest, a sort of (I imagine) South by Southwesty citywide parade of excellent shows. Over the four days, it seemed like just about every important touring band converged on the town to torment fans with difficult decisions about how to best make use of their wristbands and to balance strategic decisions about lining up early versus seeking out taco stands and worlds of books. To an infrequent visitor, this collection of packed nighttime performances and small daytime performances in basements or former funeral homes only enhanced the perception that Portland is a sprawly city with a bit of magic in the air. Schoolbuses with confused drivers shuttled between clubs, a costumed wrestling match took place on our hotel’s covered courtyard, the per capita concentration of plaid and heavyframed glasses were so far above the national average it’s hardly even worth trying to quantify, entire villages of food carts have come to occupy stray parking lots, and sometimes people say “the evil swoosh” out loud.

Of course, the shows were great, too. Explosions in the Sky make melancholy sound heroic like nobody’s business; Frightened Rabbit make continual heartbreak seem like not such a poor life choice; Arctic Monkeys kept the dance floor rolling while seeming incredibly tired of being young and famous; Mount Eerie are wrapping sprightly nature poems in harsh metals; the Local Natives provided an excellent reason to get out of bed before ten; Pink Mountaintops were pleasantly less psychadelic than advertised; and the Get Up Kids had me screaming with Napster-era nostalgia during certain parts of their set. Also notable was a KEXP–Caffe Vita co-production at the Woods, a venue carved out of a former funeral home. The Lonely Forest, Langhorne Slim, Fences, John Vanderslice, Bobby Bare Jr., Black Whales, and others played tiny sets in the parlor as the perfect soundtrack taking it easy on a Saturday afternoon. Keep an eye on their blog [caffevita] for performance footage. All in all, the festival was a wonderful reason to visit our neighbor to the south to be reminded that there are cities even more relaxed than Seattle.

Image via Nate Watters

I’m sure you’ve noticed that Monotonix did not burn down Neumos. Thankfully. There was no fire at all which, given how tightly the crowd clustered around whatever member of the band was closest, was definitely for the best.

The last time I saw Black Eyes and Neckties was kind of a high water mark for me in terms of impressive ridiculousness, what with the wheelchair and skull. I enjoyed them no less this time around. It was a little sad when they came onstage, knowing that this was their last Seattle show. They are sinister and seething when they play and charmingly goofy in between songs. If you can, you should probably head up to Bellingham on Halloween and catch their final show.

Second opener Unnatural Helpers have a singing drummer, which is a thing that always amazes me because it seems like it would take an extra helping of coordination.

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the depreciation guild (above) & the pains of being pure at heart (below) played neumo’s on tuesday. more pictures in the photoset [flickr]

On Tuesday night, early-arriving fans at Neumo’s were no doubt disappointed to find that a burrito in Idaho had spoiled their efforts to see Cymbals Eat Guitars. Food poisoning had derailed the band’s plans to claim a much-anticipated opening set, leaving its members unfortunately ill and Seattle with a bit more time on its hands to get a drink. Sadness about missing them aside, I think that anyone who has suffered from severe digestive illness knows which party got the better end of this arrangement.
That left the Depreciation Guild, basically the shoegaz[ier] A/V club (or rather subcommittee) of the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, in the role of warming the crowd. Combined with the last-gasp of summer outside, the poor ventilation inside, and videogame bleeps blipped over guitar washes and energized by a live wall of shifting color blocks, they stepped-up to the task admirably, holding and gathering a crowd.
Although the all-ages balcony had plenty of breathing room, the main floor soon attracted a perspiration-heavy gathering for the headliners, who ran through most of their recorded material — including geographically-appropriate “Kurt Cobain’s Cardigan” (which, they admit, cribs more from the Vaselines than Nirvana), and venue-appropriate “103″, and closing with an encore of their rock out freakout “Gentle Sons”. Along the way, they played some material from their forthcoming Higher Than the Stars EP along with old favorites about library sex, taboo love, and dedicated a get well song to their ailing tourmates. Predictably, the vocals were sometimes swallowed by the giant wall of fuzzed out guitars, but it was OK. We heard about how they loved Seattle and that season of the Real World with the fish throwers, the slap heard ’round the world, and the teddy bear sacrificed to the Sound. The front rows pogoed madly and more than a few guys with giant hair air drummed aerobically.
By the end, during the “banter part”, some people implored them to ditch Brooklyn for Capitol Hill. And while I’d concur that we’d love to have them in town all the time, I’d not encourage anyone to live in the basement at Neumo’s. Until then, though, we’ll have the records and the hope that they’ll bring their big tour van back someday soon.

John Vanderslice, the nicest man in indie rock.

John Vanderslice is no stranger to the Seattle area. He has played just about every area venue, festival, and record store in support of his 7 studio albums. He even once played a special secret show on the Fremont Bridge after performing at Capitol Hill Block Party, which is what the picture above is from. His latest album; “Romanian Names” is yet another accomplished record and well deserving of your ears.

John kicked off a small Pacific Northwest tour yesterday in Vancouver, BC and will be playing tonight in Seattle at The Crocodile. The show only costs $14 if you buy advance tickets. I’ll assume somewhere around $15-$20 if you pay at the door. Either way, a good deal for some great music.

Personally I’m really excited for this show. John Vanderslice is easily one of my favorite artists of the last 10 years. I’m also interested in seeing the inside of The Crocodile for the first time since it was reopened.

The lineup tonight is:

John Vanderslice
The Pink Mountaintops
Mimicking Birds

The Crocodile (2200 2nd Ave in Belltown)
8pm
$14 adv
21+

It’s no secret that Grand Archives is a band well-loved by certain members of the Metblogs team (also, a band made entirely of nice, nice guys) so it’s pretty exciting that today is the official release of their second album, “Keep In Mind Frankenstein” [subpop]. (Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a novelty bandana. Hard to say.) This album is softer and darker than the last one, and it will be the perfect soundtrack for the beginning of fall. Celebrate by listening to the band live on KEXP at 3:00, or go to the Capitol Hill Sonic Boom at 7:00 and listen to them play the whole thing acoustically. I’m pretty sure that if you don’t want to fold these guys up and put them in your pocket for all of your road trips ever, it’s because you’re made of stone.

I know, I know; Bumbershoot was SO last week. But after 3 days of PAX and another day of Bumbershoot, I kind of got buried in photos there for a while. Lame excuse, but there it is.

However, I do want to share some of the photos I took for your enjoyment. These are my favorite pictures from the 3 acts I enjoyed the most. Jason Webley, Truckasauras, and Metric.
My favorites from each: (many more after the jump)

Jason getting the crowd “wasted” for his final song of the set before the parade out to the fountain.

Truckasauras playing in front of the MASSIVE digital screen at EMP’s Sky Church

The stage lighting of the Broad Street Stage where Metric played was pretty terrible, but I like how this photo came out. Metric killed it. I’m actually surprised Metric did not play the main stage.

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Image via Josh

Neumos may have lost their minds, to your advantage–horror punk act Black Eyes and Neckties are opening for Unnatural Helpers and the destructive force of Monotonix. Who they are allowing to set up on the floor.

Let’s just pause and review that for a second. Black Eyes and Neckties will start the show covered in fake blood and almost certainly be smeared in a little bit of the real stuff by the end. The last time I saw them, singer Brad Lockhart was in a wheelchair after breaking a foot and spraining his ankles during a show, and I still managed to get clocked in the head by a fake skull during a particularly dramatic bit of cabinet destroying. (I immediately sent their album to my teenage brother.) On both feet and with this being their last Seattle show ever, I can’t imagine that they’ll hold anything back. Just these guys on the bill would make for an epic night.

But then there’s still Monotonix to watch! Those crazy Israelis had their Bumbershoot set last year shut down in about 11 minutes. They’ll spend the entire performance on top of whatever they can climb, possibly while on fire. You might be holding up the band while they sit on top of the drums and play from there, like they did at the Comet last year. In the middle of the afternoon at the Sunset they handed out pieces of the drum kit and took to the streets. Mayhem is generally an understatement, and I’m not sure it’s possible to do anything but love these sweaty, smelly guys,

It’ll be an unmissable show, if only because Neumos might not be left standing by the end of it. (Ok, also because both bands play good enough music that the spectacle isn’t even the best part of the show.) And we have a pair to give away to one of you! Email us at seattle.metblogs @ gmail.com with the subject line “Monotonix” (or tell us you want them on the twitter: @seattlemetblogs) by Friday morning to be entered to win them.

kip berman from the pains of being pure at heart, chbp. photo by josh [flickr]

Their cunning, fuzzy, self-titled album took the indieverse by storm with sounds of upbeat yearning reminiscent of explosive basement pajama parties and covert library action. They charmed the pants off of the mainstage during the Capitol Hill Block Party in the middle of the summer. Now, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart are returning to Seattle on Tuesday, just a few days ahead of the release of their new [already!] EP, Higher Than The Stars (22 September, Slumberland, complete with a trancy St. Etienne remix of the title track).
As much as I liked seeing them on a big stage in the great outdoors, I have a sneaking suspicion that they’ll be even more in their element in closer, darker quarters. If you haven’t already purchased tickets for this show (now with an all-ages balcony!), we might be able to reward your procrastination.

We have a pair to giveaway to one of you. Just drop a note to us (seattle.metblogs @ gmail.com or on the twitter @seattlemetblogs ) — with “tPoBPaH” in the subject line before Saturday afternoon and you’ll be entered to win. Those who identify the skeletons or highlight meaningful entries in the bibliography of “Young Adult Friction” [youtube] video — a near-perfect visual expression of the band’s sonic aesthetic, as far as I’m concerned — will improve their odds of victory.

// the pains of being pure at heart, with the deprecation guild & cymbals eat guitars. tuesday 15 september, $13 adv, 8 pm [neumos]