Been a While, Ain't It, Fellas?

So there I was, hanging out at The Urban Lounge, Salt Lake City's premier hotspot where you can see the hottest acts in music today. Actually, The Urban Lounge sucks, and what sucks even more about it is that good bands really do play there, so I have to keep going back. Anyway, there I was, standing around with my friend and roommate, Jake Metcalf. We were there to see Okkervil River, the headlining act, but Titus Andronicus had to rock the house first. This we knew; their name appeared right under Okkervil's on the ticket. But before Titus Androicus took the stage, they--whoever planned the event--dropped another act on us: Julianna Barwick.

Now here's where I wish I knew the appropriate terms for music recording/producing/mixing, so I could explain what this young lady was doing up there. Let's just say that her music's ambition might just have been to be held up against Enya's, but "with an electronic twist" or some such nonsense. I mean, I liked it at first--very relaxing--but then each song felt like a continuation of the one before it and that she just had to take a rest for a minute. Jake said that he bets that her song titles are all very wordy, while I thought they'd either be dual-worded (do any of my reader want to find a single word that means "two words"?), with the first word of the title just being a modifier for the second word, like Owl City's "Rainbow Veins" or "Crocodile Sky" or "Vanilla Twilight" or "Hospital Flowers" or "Umbrella Beach." Et cetera. To sum it up, her music didn't suck, but I feel it works less for casual listening and more for soundtrack to movie dream montages or perhaps for subsurface speakers on a whale watching ship.

Titus Andronicus... were good. They sounded good and they brought great energy to the crowd. I just wasn't familiar with their songs, so I know I could have enjoyed it more than I did. Oh well. We all have our missed opportunities.

I am very glad to say that I did not miss out on the opportunity to see Okkervil River play. No ma'am. A couple years ago, they opened for Iron & Wine (I'll avoid talking about the show they played a couple weeks back at In the Venue) for the Twilight Concert Series, and I did miss the opportunity. I was stuck in Logan, Utah with no gas and no cash, so I couldn't go and probably bawled my eyes out or something. But then, toward the end of last summer (2010), a number of my roommates and I were watching the tour dates for The National in the wake of High Violet's release. We saw that they were not coming thought Utah, but would be playing in Denver, which isn't too bad a drive. So we planned on that. Then one day, Tyler (a roommate at the time, in case context has been lost) comes up to me and says, "Hey, dick. The National's playing with Okkervil River in Seattle." He might not have said the dick part. Needless to say, that changed our Denver plans. (That was needless to say, right?)

Okkervil was awesome in Seattle--well, Redmond, actually--but they were also the opener, so they played a curtailed set, just a handful of songs. The other night though, here in Utah, they blew my mind. I went to the Arcade Fire/Local Natives show in April and I put Okkervil's show up there with it. Heck, if O-ville River had had a band like Local Natives opening for them, I would definitely put it above the Arcade Fire show. They played a fair amount from I Am Very Far, but they delved back a ton, too. I was having a great time, but then Will Scheff said, "This song's about suicide," and proceeded to to play "John Allyn Smith Sails" (http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=SUi_Di5hO6g), and about halfway through that song I stopped having fun. And started having a blast. Seriously. They then played so many great crowd-rousing hits: "For Real," "Our Life is Not a Movie Or Maybe," "Lost Coastlines," "Westfall," "Unless It's Kicks." I came out of there with my head swimming, my voice struggling, but I felt so good. I really have no more to say about it. Wait--I guess I do: if you aren't familiar with Okkervil River, first of all, shame on you, and second...of all, I guess, start with the tracks I just named in this paragraph, and, I don't know, let me know what you think and all.

Lastly, to cap off the evening (which ended at about 1:30, by the way), Jake and I went to 7-Eleven, because if we don't go to 7-Eleven after a concert in Salt Lake, we fear some ill fate must surely befall us. It's kind of like whenever Derek Winder comes to Logan, we have to eat McDonalds breakfast. We hate it, but we do it. No one knows why.