Rough Draft

Tunes in Berkeley

Last Saturday Nick, Mike, Lora, Tristan, and I went to Berkeley to see Matt Nathanson, Howie Day, Guster, and O.A.R at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. I had only heard of Guster and O.A.R before, but it turned out to be an excellent show. A few days before the show I got Matt Nathanson's new CD, Beneath the Fireworks and became completely addicted to it. His music has a peppy beat, the lyrics are meaningful, and he has a great voice. In just over a week, I've listened to the entire album 20 times according to iTunes. And oh yeah, he's incredibly funny during his live show. Here's from the Bay Area and Nick said he plays a lot of shows here so I'm definitely planning to see him again.

Up next was Howie Day. After the standard break between sets he comes onstage, but I'm not expecting him to start playing because there wasn't anyone else on stage with him. I was expecting an entire band with him, like Matt Nathanson had. But no, it was just him, a guitar, and his foot pedal controlled recorders. He would start playing and then use the foot pedals to record and play back guitar parts and vocal parts. It was quite amazing to see and hear. Nick purchased his EP and posted the live version of Bunnies. Download and you can get a sense of the sound, but it's still not the same as watching him doing this right in front of you.

Guster played third and was the band 90% of the crowd was there to see. I was only familiar with a couple of their songs. I did enjoy their set though. Mike didn't like the songs off their new album which were quite a bit slower than their other songs. The best part about watching them was the drummer. He didn't use drum sticks, but instead had white tape around his fingers and played drums, bongos, and cymbals all with his hands. It was pretty crazy how fast he would move, and hitting the cymbals looked like it had to hurt.

The headliners were O.A.R.. None of us were terribly impressed with them. Mike described their music as "Jamaican Island Ska." Everyone was pretty tired, so we started to leave after their second song. But just as we were about to leave the venue, we hear their singer say Matt Nathanson's going to come out and sing a song with them. They played a cover of U2's Sunday, Bloody Sunday and it was great.

After that we left and stopped by a frozen yogurt place on campus. We got huge cups for under $3, easily 2-3 times the amount of Gelato I was used to getting in Cleveland for the same price.

Love Hurts

"Now from what I gather, Zeb is either the same way I was in college or at least similar - shy to a fault. So when guys like us fall in love, we think it's "true love" because no other girl in our twenty or so years would so much as talk to us, let alone go on a date. When we finally find it, love I mean, we cling to it with everything we've got. We're no longer geeks but a lover, a partner, and a human being. So when we get dumped, we get dumped hard... we don't want to go back to how we were...lonely to the core."

True Dat.

Who would have a thought a web comic could so perfectly capture what I'm feeling. Thanks, Shaw Island.

NetFlix

I recently signed up for NetFlix mainly to catch up on some TV series (The Shield, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Coupling). I've gotten pretty far along with that, so now I'm looking for some suggested viewing items. Leave suggestions (movies, anime, or tv shows) in the comments.

Concert Outlook - Rockin!

There's quite a few excellent shows coming up in the Bay Area in the next couple months that I'm planning to attend. Nick just called to invite me to join him and some other people I know to see O.A.R., Guster, Howie Day, and Matt Nathanson at Berkley in a couple weeks. He also told me the Scissor Sisters will be back in town in September. They have an absolutely great disco cover of Comfortably Numb.

Finch will be in San Francisco on September 10. Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy, and Matchbook Romance will be there October 12th. And finally (and perhaps best of all), Yellowcard and The Starting Line are touring together and will be here October 16th. I can't wait!