Well, Kosmo picked the right show to miss this week. It was weird. First off, maybe 100-150 people there. I should have known, but it was weird all the same. Jon Auer was at the merch table when I got there at 10:45 (I missed both openers -- I really wanted to see Deathray Davies, but I've been swamped at work...I heard Oranger was "a bad version of Deathray Davies").
Band went on about 11:10 -- and shit the guitars were LOUD. Everyone in my party rolled up napkins and made makeshift earplugs. It was certainly partly the sound mix, but also Jon & Ken were kind of creating this wall of guitar noise - sludgy, messy, overbearing -- you couldn't hear much melody in it. It was really hard to recognize even songs I knew (most were from the new album and Amazing Disgrace). And the guys were jumping and throwing guitars and...I don't know, I just wasn't getting it. It seemed like a parody at times. I know that a lot of bands can rock out much more live than they do on record (hello Sloan, hello Ok Go), but...I wasn't getting it.
About a third of the way in to the 1.5 hour set some folks yelled that the guitars were too loud and the vocals needed to be up -- made it a bit better. A few songs from Dear 23 and Frosting on the Beater sounded good, as did "Conversations" from the new album (probably because it's such a classic Posies sounding song).
I stayed for the whole set, but left with that thought, "I'll always have the albums, and that's what matters."
