Pitchfork Fesrtival Day 2

Day 2 was our first complete day at the Festival. Again, the weather was pretty cooperative, but rain was very possible that day, so we packed up plenty of gear, hopped Bella on the train, and headed into the city for a full day of music.

We got there nearly right at 1:00 for the start, and things already started off much better than last year. We nearly walked right in to the gate this time around, when last year we were stuck in a line half a block long just trying to get in while the opening bands were playing. Since we knew the sun wasn't going to be beating down on us all day thanks to the cloud cover, we found a good spot near the soundbooths for the two main stages and set up our chairs and blanket and settled in.

One of the biggest complaints around about the weekend was that the sound level wasn't loud enough on the lawn, but that really worked to our advantage. Since we had Bella there, we obviously didn't want to have her anywhere where it was too loud, but we were there very close to both soundbooths, and the sound was mostly very clear and tolerable, and pretty much never got dangerously loud. I guess everyone's loss was our gain.

We started off listening to two new bands that were getting some hype, Cymbals Eat Guitars and Plants and Animals. Both were fine for an early afternoon festival set, can't really remember much from either, but they were enjoyable as early background music. One of the highlights of the weekend followed them immediately, the Canadian art punk band F-cked Up.

The lead singer of F-cked Up is a big 300 pound bald dude who calls himself Pink Eye, and who we came to see has probably the hairiest back in all of rock. I say this because after about one song, he took his shirt off and spent the rest of the sent leaping into the crowd. When he wasn't actually in the crowd, he was right up on the barricades, and pretty much never set foot on stage the rest of their time.

What he lacked in vocal ability (aside from screaming and yelling), he more than made up for in energy and charisma. The band capably plowed through the tracks, while Pink Eye was the whirlwind center of attention, making himself one with the audience while leading his band through a rampaging set. It was a classic set of punk energy, a perfect festival midday set to get things going.

Next up was another band I was very interested in seeing, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart. They came into the festival heavily hyped, and their swirling guitar sound was being compared favorably to My Bloody Valentine. They were pretty enjoyable, playing to one of the biggest crowds they had ever played to. The band seemed a bit mellow out in the big open field, and I would guess they would come off completely different in a smaller venue. Definitely one to watch.

From that point on the, the quality dipped for a few hours on the main stages. Final Fantasy was a "band" that consisted only of one main member, a guy who played almost every note on only a violin or keyboard, and used effects pedals to loop his music and accompany himself. It wasn't bad, but belonged more on the smaller side stage instead of one of the more interesting bands there.

Yeasayer followed him, again another very heavily hyped band. This was unfortunately the point of the day at which the clouds finally decided to let loose and give us the only real rain shower of the day. I didn't really care for Yeasayer, nothing really grabbed my attention during the set. I did try heading over to the small side stage to see if the band Wavves would actually perform, as their previous live show ended in a complete onstage meltdown, and the main guitarist/singer had broken his arm in a skateboarding accident earlier in the week as well. I waited for a few minutes, but as their set time passed, I figured it wasn't worth the effort and headed back to our chairs. From what I could hear from their stage, it sounded like the right decisions.

After a dull set by rapper Doom, the penultimate band on the main stages was by yet another heavily hyped band, Beirut. I will say for one or two songs, their sound could have been interesting, as they used a pretty wide array of instruments. However, their sound got very repetetive and dull, and never rose beyond that. Michele and Bella took the time to go over to the side stage to try to catch the set by the most giddy band on the Earth, Matt and Kim, and I texted and told her I was extremely jealous of them.

Matt and Kim's manic piano/drum duo make for great power pop/punk songs, and their set at Lollapalooza a few years ago by far made them the band that was the happiest I have ever seen playing EVER. Unfortunately, the side stage was jam packed for their set, so Michele and Bella weren't able to see much. Bella really wanted to see them though, mostly because they had a woman playing the drums. They stuck it out as long as they could and loved what the heard, but headed back to wrap up the night.

Last up on the main stages was one of my current favorite bands, the National. Their last album, "Boxer," was one of my favorites of this decade, and their set at Lollapalooza last year was my favorite of that weekend, despite other heavy hitters on the bill like Radiohead, Wilco and Nine Inch Nails. The National have been extremely busy over the last year, mostly handling various side projects (most noteably the benefit compilation Dark Was the Night), but thankfully they must have been working on new band material as well.

The band did debut a few new songs in their closing set, while still of course hitting their previous great material like "Fake Empire," "Ada," and "Apartment Story." Lead singer Matt Berninger was again the MVP, cooly and calmly crooning out the majority of the set, but exploding when called for on "Abel" and "Mr. November." There was some doubt if they could handle closing out the fest, but there was little doubt left after the end of their night.

Pitchfork Music Festival Day 1

This past weekend, we attended one of my favorite annual events, the Pitchfork Music Festival. It takes place in a park just west of the Loop in the city, and it's a family friendly event that we've even taken Bella to the last three years in a row.

From 2006 through 2008, it was a bit of a challenge, since almost every day in those years the temperatures chose to soar to 90 and 100 degrees and above. Thankfully this year, thanks to the very wonderfully cool summer we've had in Chicago, the high temperature the entire weekend was only about 78 degrees. It was already a perfect weekend based on that.

I went solo on Friday night, since there were only four bands playing, and I was only concerned with seeing one of them. The festival kicked off with the Chicago instrumental group Tortoise. Sadly, they weren't very interesting, even as background noise while waiting for the next group, which was the band I wanted to see, Yo La Tengo.

I've been a fan of Yo La Tengo for something like 15 years now, and they are a very frustrating live act, because they can be among the best live bands out there, but also among the most boring, depending on the night. The bands that played on Friday night all agreed to let the fans who bought tickets vote on their set lists for the night, so one way or another, this was going to be a unique and interesting set.

They opened their set slowly, with 3 piano based songs, but thankfully one was their classic "Autumn Sweater." Once the guitars were brought out, things were guaranteed to get lively. One of my highlights for the weekend happened around their fifth songs, when they played "Cherry Chapstick," a guitar blast that I've never had the chance to see them play live. The rest of the set had some interesting selections ("Mr. Tough," "Tom Courtnay"), but somehow they didn't have my favorite song in the set, "Blue Line Swinger," which I thought was always very popular live.

They did play a new song from their album which will be released in Septemeber as a break in the action, and closed with another guitar monster, "Sugarcube." Ira Kaplan, the band's guitarist, is one of my favorite players of all, and it was a thrill to be up against the stage to see him play up close again. I only wish they would add a YLT song to Guitar Hero or Rock Band, since they would need ot add an accelerometer to measure how much you are swinging the guitar around while it is off your neck while you are doing solos in the game. Wishful thinking.

Yo La Tengo was followed by what was hyped as the biggest set of the weekend by the critics, which was the return of Chicago punk legends the Jesus Lizard. I've heard a few of their songs in the past, which never did much for me, and have never seen an of their shows, which were supposed to be legendary. This is the first time they've played the city in nearly 10 years, so they anticiaption was high.

I hung toward the back, it probably would have been alot more interesting up front, but I didn't feel the need to be up there. I'm pretty much apparently the only person out of the approximate 17,000 or so who were supposed to be there who was unimpressed by the set though. It got pretty repetetive, and I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between any of the band's songs at all. Lead singer David Yow was amusing to watch at times, as he leapt in and out of the audience, but that can only go so far.

After the Jesus Lizard were the night's headliner's Built to Spill. I have liked some of their stuff, but their most recent album left me really cold. Since the food lines were pretty long (there was only one food vendor since it was the shortest day of the festival), and since I was beat from the work week, and lastly since it was actually getting near 60 and I had on shorts, I admit that I wussed out and decided to head home for the night before Built to Spill started. I knew I had two fantastic days of music ahead, so I didn't regret the decision too much.

Green Day at the United Center

I finished off our little vacation weekend by going solo to the United Center to see Green Day. Their newest cd, "21st Century Breakdown," isn't as great as their previous cd "American Idiot," but they can be forgiven for that since that was a career pinnacle.

The show was opened by the New York band The Bravery, who I have to give a lot of credit to, since they are creative and original... at finding new ways to suck. (Sorry, borrowed that joke from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog). They are the one band out there who prove that the whole dance rock sound that is big right now can be really lame and uninteresting. Well done guys.

I don't know who's scheduling idea it was, but Green Day then didn't take the stage until 9 PM on a Monday night. There were a lot of young kids in the audience, so I don't know if they all made it through the show or not, but I wasn't thrilled about that since I had to wake up at 5 the next morning. Oh well, enough about me.

The setlist pretty much stuck exactly to what they have played at every other stop so far on the tour, which is fine since they had a huge video display behind them, and plenty of pyrotechnics timed in sync with the show. The first part of the show focused on the newest album, with the strongest tracks leading off. After touching on a few of the highlights from America Idiot, they then plowed through most of their biggest hits from their earlier days.

The band did keep it pretty fun for the most part, they literally got the audience involved as much as possible, by bringing some fans up to sing verses from "Longview," and by giving one very young fan the chance to play all of the guitar lines in the American Idiot standout "Jesus of Suburbia."

The only problem I had with the show (aside from the late start time, being Mr. Old Man) was that alot of the singalong parts got dragged out way too long, and there were about 10 too many "heeyyyyy ooooohhh" chants that dragged on too long. Plus, for the second time that I've seen them, they drag out "King for a Day" and make it into a medley with "Shout," and that ends up taking up about 10 minutes of show time that could have been spent playing anything else off of American Idiot, like "The Death of St. Jimmy" or "Whatshername." Oh well.

It was a great show, they probably broke a few curfew laws in the process, but proved once again that they are one of the top bands in the country right now.

Our Mini-Minnesota Trip

Last weekend, we packed up the car and headed up to the almost Great White North for a quick mini-weekend in Minneapolis. It was a dual purpose visit, first to visit our friend Molly, who we haven't seen in quite a while, and second, to see the Basilica Block Party, which featured a few bands we were big fans of.

It was a pretty good drive, no complaints, Bella handled it like a pro. Of course she didn't take a nap til the last half hour or so, but that's life. After arriving at Molly's and settling in, we got right back in the car and headed to downtown Minneapolis for the Block Party.

We were there on Friday for one reason, to see the reunion of one of our favorite bands ever, the Jayhawks. They're pretty important in this family's history, since Michele and I had our very first date at a Jayhawks show on October 4, 1997, at the Metro in Chicago. It was the second version of the band, after one of the two main members, Marc Olson, had left the band to go solo.

The Jayhawks were also extremely important to us, since we used their classic song "Blue" as our first dance at our wedding. I would say that anyone who attended our reception would remember this, but from all reports, everyone there was so obliterated by the end of the night, most people couldn't remember much at all. Ahhh, open bars...

Anyways, this was the first US show that the original version of the band had played since around 1995 or so, so this was definitely worth the trip. They sounded like they hadn't missed a week together, and were spot on with their beautiful harmonies as always. They of course stuck to almost only playing songs from their masterpiece, 1995's "Tomorrow the Green Grass," and their previous great effort, 1992's "Hollywood Town Hall."

It was fantastic to hear the original band playing such great songs as "Two Hearts," "I'd Run Away," "Sister Cry" and "Walking on Down the Road," but I was crossing my fingers in the hopes that they would play anything off of their post-split albums "Smile" and "Sound of Lies," just to hear how they would sound with Olson's vocal harmonies added in. Sadly, that didn't happen as I guessed.

Despite a brief rainshower, the show was still a joy to witness, especially of course "Blue," performed with the Basilica's choir providing backing vocal harmonies as well. And with barely an encore, it was over before we knew it, and the band was back in the vaults of our memories.

Bella was a trooper, she made it through the whole night way past her normal bed time, dancing and jumping around and having a good time the whole way through. After a night's rest and a tour of the city, we headed back to the Block Party for night two on Saturday night.

Saturday ended up being more of a mess, since there were 4 bands we were interested in seeing. Since this is only really a block party, the stages were not staggered in their set times, as they are at Pitchfork and Lollapalooza. Instead, basically the two large stages operate at the exact same times, and you are forced to choose between which bands you want to see.

It was a gorgeous day, so on top of it being Saturday, that drew out many more people to attend day 2. We first stopped at the same stage we watched the Jayhawks on to watch some of the set by Minneapolis natives Tapes 'N' Tapes. Their herky-jerky sound comes off very well live, but we weren't able to stick around very long, since we had to hike to the other stage for our next band.

We then went to the bigger stage to try to see one of our favorite live musicians, Matt Nathanson. Sadly, ALOT of other people had the same idea. We stood in a spot barely halfway up the parking lot the stage was on, and by the time Nathanson hit the stage, we were completely surrounded, to the point where most of those walking by barely cared that we had a small child in a stroller. So after about one song, we bailed out and headed to the back for some room and air.

Nathanson is a great performer live, with great catchy songs and hillarious stage banter in between. I'm not sure how many times I've seen him in the past 5 years, but it's probably at least once a year. The sad thing is that I can pretty much predict the exact set Nathanson plays every time, right down to the covers that he throws in mid-song. Since I've seen him do that all before, we decided to head back to the other stage to get a good spot for the closer for the night, who we were anxiously looking forward to as well.

The closer for us, while the Counting Crows were closing the big stage, was another Minneapolis based band, The Hold Steady. The band has been on the road for almost a year supporting their fantastic album "Stay Positive," and this was the third chance I had to see them this year. The first chance was on what turned out to be the coldest night in the past decade at least in January, which I had to pass on because of that. They also played last month at the Taste of Randolph on Father's Day, but we passed on that as well since we knew we'd see them in Minneapolis.

The band did not disappoint, they were once again spot on and proudly took the title of the Greatest Bar Band in the World for 2009. They stormed through great tracks like "Constructive Summer," "Yeah Sapphire," "Sequestered in Memphis" and "Stay Positive," while working in some of their older songs like "Chips Ahoy!" and "Southtown Girls." It was a pretty nice touch to get to hear these songs of bar denizens probably blocks from the very bars that inspired them.

It was a very fun weekend, we all had a great time and hope the lineup is nearly as good next year so we can head up there once again. Hopefully I'll post some of our pics to follow.

Our Latest Concert Weekend

We decided to kick off Bella's concert season with a bang, with not one but two concerts in three days! It would have been 3 in 3 days, but we woosed out and didn't go see the Hold Steady on Sunday since we'll be seeing them in a few weeks.

We headed down to the Taste of Randolph Street on Saturday on what turned out to be one of the first real days of summer. Of course that meant everyone and their brother were heading downtown as well, so the drive in was loads of fun. Once we got there, we found a good shady spot and spent the night hanging out with some our friends.

We got to see the Posies, who I never really paid attention to before and didn't that night much either. They were followed quickly by a band I haven't seen in almost a decade, Urge Overkill. UO was a great Chicago band that made possibly the greatest album ever by any band from Chicago, Saturation. They could have played the majority of the album and the crowd would have loved it, but instead they actually played a lot of new material along with the Saturation tracks and some older stuff.

The last time I saw UO, they were pretty sloppy to say the least, but they were surprisingly on that night. The new songs sounded good too, so it wasn't a case of running to the bathroom or getting a drink while the new stuff was on. No idea when a new album will be out though.

We finished off the night with the new "supergroup" Tinted Windows, which features members of Fountains of Wayne, Smashing Pumpkins, Cheap Trick, and, yes, Hanson. The band performed exactly as expected, which is a good thing, as they pretty much knocked out their entire album of power pop nuggets in barely a half-hour. There was a decent sized contingent of young girls still screaming for the guy from Hanson, but it was easy to ignore. Bella loved the band, so much so that she said she'd be asking her mom to play their cd in the car on the way home from school. Knowing Bella, I have no doubt she'll remember to ask.

After a very good Fathers Day to rest, we hopped on the L Monday night and headed downtown again to see a show at the gorgeous Pritzker Pavillion in Millenium Park. There were two acclaimed indie rock bands there, Dirty Projectors and Sea and Cake. The best part of all was the show was free, so it was definitely worth the effort.

We first let Bella hop around for a while in the cool fountain thing they have outside of the park, so she was extremely happy about that. We parked ourselves on the lawn and listened to the Dirty Projectors, who weren't bad, a little difficult to get into, but could be better with a few listens. After their set, we took Bella back out to the fountain for another good round of hopping around the giant puddles.

We checked out the Sea and Cake after that, they were still good this time around as when I saw them at Pitchfork last year. It was a very cool thing to see bands like this playing for free in such a gorgeous venue on such a perfect night.

Side note: There's apparently a lot more "security" there at the Pritzker Pavillion for these free shows than there was for the previous shows by Wilco and Tori Amos that we have seen there. They must train these guys very well though, early on when we got there, I took Bella to the bathroom, and was stopped at the door and told I could not go into the men's bathroom with her. Reminder, we are talking about my 3 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER!! After a minute or two of discussing this, he finally told me there was a family bathroom on the other side of the pavillion, so instead of waiting with him for his supervisor (and having Bella's bladder burst), I walked as quickly as I could to the other bathroom. I hope the city of Chicago was able to sleep better Monday night knowing that that bathroom was safe from my 3 year old daughter.

We Finally Did It...

We finally decided to flush Bella down the toilet. At least she was happy about it.

The Lollapalooza 2009 Schedule

Once again, the annual tradition of one of my favorite days of the year has just occured. After weeks of waiting, the schedule for the 2009 Lollapalooza weekend is finally up. As I've written before, this day is annually as exciting for me as a combination of christmas and the day people fill out their NCAA basketball tournament brackets is for everyone else. So once again, a good solid hour of my work day was spent on this.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how the schedule has turned out. I was dreading that they were going to put every band I wanted to see at the same time, but luckily things are spread out (with a few exceptions), so I should be getting my money's worth that weekend.

That Friday, August 7th, will start early at 12:15 for me, with Manchester Orchestra, an emo-ish band, on the north side of the grounds. I'll then walk the mile or so to the south end of the park, of course grabbing my first (of several) Robinson's rib sandwich of the weekend along the way, and getting a good spot to see one of my most anticipated sets of the weekend by the Gaslight Anthem. It'll then be a fast walk/run across the grounds once again to make it to the north end to catch all of the also highly anticipated set by Bon Iver. Here's hoping that I'll actually be able to hear his/their set this year, as opposed to Pitchfork last year.

Luckily, I will be able to just turn around to catch then next set by a favorite, Ben Folds, who I haven't seen in a few years. Then, thankfully on the same side of the field again, I'll be able to see another set by Fleet Foxes, who didn't do much for me at Pitchfork last year, but whose album since then became one of my favorites of 2008. The rest of the night will be easier, I'll stroll to the south end again, most likely picking up rib sandwich #2, seeing a bit of Peter, Bjorn and John's set (despite their disappionting set at Metro a month or so ago), then heading back up north again to round out the night with sets by Andrew Bird (second to last? Really??), and Kings of Leon.

Saturday may not be as bad as past years thankfully. It'll start around 12:45, with another set by Living Things, whose bluesy T-Rex flavored stomp was enjoyable at Lolla a few years ago. After fueling up with most likely rib sandwich #3, I'll head to the smaller street stage to see another anticipated set by Ida Maria, whose debut album from this year is getting a lot of play in our house. I'll hustle north to catch as much of Los Campesinos! as I can from there, then head back south to watch Chairlift, even though they too were a bit disappointing a few weeks ago at Metro.

Thankfully there's an hour break right at dinner time where two bands I can't stand, Arctic Monkeys and Coheed and Cambria, will be playing, so definite rib sandwich #4 there. I'll definitely check out the set by lo-fi punks No Age, then head up north slowly to get a good spot to see one of the bands I'm most excited for all weekend, TV on the Radio, winner of the highly coveted Scott Pacyna Album of the Year award for 2008. Unfortunately, they scheduled another band I'm dying to see, Animal Collective, immediately after TVOTR on the south end of the grounds, so that will be a fast mile run to see as much of their set as possible. Thankfully, that will be a short night for me, since I don't care about Tool or Beastie Boys, who are headlning, so I'll actually head home early that night. Unless I attend an aftershow somewhere of course.

Sunday is actually the busiest day for me, which is the first time that has happened in the last 4 Lolla's in Chicago. It'll all start at 12:30, to see Ra Ra Riot, an orch pop band I was supposed to see in FLA in March, until the festival they were supposed to play at was cancelled. Next, it'll be a short walk to check out Bat For Lashes, a British band that mixes some of the best parts of Tori Amos and PJ Harvey to good effect.

After a short break with no one I want to watch, I'll have to make a decision between two bands I was really looking forward to. On the north end is the Raveonettes, a great Danish band who sound like a 50's girl group backed by the Jesus & Mary Chain, or the south end has Dan Deacon, an electronic artist whose live shows are supposed to be on par with Girl Talk's live shows in terms of spectacle and fun. This is the hardest decision of the weekend for me, we'll see which one I go with later.

Another decision follows that time slot, with Vampire Weekend going against Neko Case. Case has an absolutely amazing and gorgeous voice, but her song quality has always left me a little cold. I just saw VW at Pitchfork last year and highly enjoyed their set, but I don't know if they'll be playing the new material they are currently recording at this show. I'll most likely go with VW, mostly for the proximity to the next set by Passion Pit on the smaller side stage.

Passion Pit is the last of my highly anticipated sets of the weekend, as their debut album from this year is already one of the best of 2009, and they're riding a massive wave of hype and buzz into this show. Their infectious dance rock should make wading through the massive crowd that will be at their set worth it though. after a brief side stop to watch some of Cold War Kids, and yes, consume one of the last Robinsons rib sandwiches of the weekend, I'll head back to the same small stage to catch Deerhunter, whose set opening for Girl Talk in FLA greatly impressed me, and we'll see if they can continue impressing me here.

My last schedule conflict of the weekend follows that, with Band of Horses going against Silversun Pickups. I've really wanted to see SSPU, as I missed them at Lollapalooza two years ago. However, their release from this year, "Swoon," has left me pretty cold and didn't grab me as much as their previous album, so I'll most likely go with the Neil Young-inspired bombast of Band of Horses. I'll close out the weekend by catching most of the Killers, half while there and half while walking to take the train home.

Looks pretty good, I count 7 must see bands for Friday and Saturday each, then 9 on Sunday, so 23 bands I'll be making every effort to see, along with the ones I'll randomly see while killing time, walking around and eating even more rib sandwiches. Guess I should start working out now to prepare.

3 Concert Reviews for the Price of One!

Since I'm slacking so much on blogging lately, I figured I'd cram three recent concert reviews into one post. Yes, it's been a while since the last time it happened, but I went to 3 concerts in a week last week. Okay, technically 3 concerts in 8 days, but that's still pretty good.

First up was St. Vincent last Sunday at Metro. St. Vincent, like Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins, is basically a one-man band (or woman in this case), with Annie Clark being the main member. She's a former member of the giant Polyphonic Spree band, but that is true of roughly 20 other people as well, so that isn't what makes her stand out.

I first saw her open for the National at their show in Chicago following the release of their brilliant album "Boxer." She really impressed me then, she performed solo with some prerecorded and looping stuff, but was pretty impressive with what she could pull off live. This time around, in support of her newest album "Actor," she was touring with a full band in tow, which detracted in some ways from her original impressive performance, but filled out her sound and allowed her to be more creative.

The show was opened by the Philadelphia band Pattern Is Movement. The band was amusing since they looked about as much like rock musicians as the fat guy sitting in that cube next to you at work. However, they managed to mesmerize the crowd with their complex rhythm, using only a drum set and keyboard to keep the crowd silent and entranced for a good half hour.

St. Vincent took the stage shortly after that, performing as a five piece, including band members switching between woodwinds, guitars and keyboars as the songs needed. Clark is still great as the center of the band, as her lulling guitar strumming would give way to outbursts of strangled guitar and would settle back down again with little warning.

Side note: I'd tell you what songs I enjoyed the most that she did, but I can't because I haven't bougth any of her cd's yet, since they are very difficult to find and can't be found for less than $15, so that breaks my no-cd-over-$10 rule.

St. Vincent's set was very enjoyable though. Clark says that with her latest album, she watched a bunch of the old Disney cartoons like Sleeping Beauty and imagined rewriting the soundtracks. You can tell this in her new songs, as they moved from lulling harmonies to sharply contrasting jagged passages and back again. She is definitely an artist to watch to see how she will grow and mature from here.

Friday night brought a very different set from British punks Art Brut at Schuba's. The band, touring on their recently released (and awesomely named) "Art Brut vs. Satan," wrapped up a 5 night stand at Schuba's that night, having played a different set each night of the week. Their main member, singer Eddie Argos, is known for writing hillarious lyrics and basically talk/singing them. He also embraces the "anyone can do it" spirit of punk, which he wholeheartedly encourages his audience to do every time he plays.

The show was opened by a new California band called Dusty Rhodes and the River Band. No, sadly, it's not THAT Dusty Rhodes, it's instead some younger dude with an affinity for giant afros. Sorry, but the Mars Volta are the masters of that. DR's set was pretty bland, tried to blur some genre lines (70's rock, country, whatever else), but didn't do much either way. They are perfect for a summer street fest band (which they ended up playing the next day in Chicago), since you could easilly ignore them and move on to the next thing.

Art Brut took the stage and didn't waste any time as always. You can always tell the band is having a great time, and Friday night was no exception. They played a good chunk of songs from the newest album ("Alcoholics Unanimous," "DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshakes"), while sprinkling in a few classics from their debut "Bang Bang Rock & Roll," including the classic "Emily Kane."

The band fittingly threw in a cover of the Ramone's "the KKK Took My Baby Away" as one of their encores, and was jovial and chatted and joked with the crowd throughout the night. It's pretty sad that most people still have no idea who this band is yet, but then again, as Argos sings in "Demons Out!", "the record buying public shouldn't be voting!" Art Brut will be back in Chicago later this summer at the Green Festival in August, definitely do not miss them.

Last up was Metric at the Metro last night. Metric is a Canadian dance/rock band fronted by the lovely Emily Haines, whose newest cd "Fantasies" is already a stand-out for one of the best of 2009.

There were two openers last night, Smile Smile and Sebastien Grainger. Smile Smile is a duo who played guitar and piano, with some pre-recorded drum loops helping them out. They came off well, their harmonies were pretty good and they seemed to be enjoying themselves as well. They were only on for about 20 minutes, so they didn't get much time to impress, but they did well with what they had.

Next came Sebastien Grainger and the Mountain. Grainger was half of the duo Death From Above 1979, who were poised to become a big breakthrough band, but instead broke up in 2006. Grainger, who played drums in DFA1979, has moved out from the kit and is now playing guitar and singing in his new group. His new stuff is much more dance rock than the sludgy stomp of DFA, and it fit in well with the sound of Metric. For some reason though, the crowd did not seem to connect to Grainger, despite his pleas to get them dancing and to loosen up.

After a brief wait, Metric came out to a welcoming crowd. The band kept its focus on this year's great cd "Fantasies," playing all but one or two of the songs from it. Most of the songs translated very well live, losing some of the dance grooves here and there, but it was not a problem. Emily Haines is an excellent lead singer, she reminded me alot of Shirley Manson from the early days of Garbage, as she would stalk around the stage, make plenty of eye contact with the crowd, and just generally looked like she was having a really good time and wanted to be there.

They did throw in a few older songs to make their old loyal fans happy, but they showed with the set that they are firmly set in the present and are even ready to look more to the future. Their closer "Stadium Love" was epic, and a great sign of where they could go from here.

It was a very good week of concerts overall, 3 for 3 ain't bad. We're taking Bella to her first concert of the year this weekend at the Taste of Randolph Street to see Urge Overkill and Tinted Windows. We'll see if the streak keeps up.

Bella's New Favorite Pasttime

Bella has recently become a huge fan of playing Bags in our yard now, that is probably going to be her big obsession through the summer, besides riding her bike.

I know, I know what you are saying, "oooh, Bags, that's so 2007!" Well, considering Bella was barely 1 back then, deal with it!

And yes, the Froggy Boots are very critical to her bag throwing style, aim and precision.

Should have some other updates coming this week, including (hopefully) the Lollapalooza schedule later this week. Crossing my fingers now...