Alternate Routes & Paolo Nutini

I went out to the Higher Ground to catch The Alternate Routes and Paolo Nutini as they played a couple of good sets of music up here. The Alternate Routes have been up here in Vermont before, and I was able to see them at their free concert back in July. Paolo Nutini, I'd heard of, as he's been on the radio with his two singles.

The Alternate Routes opened, and played a fairly good set this time around. It was a bit of an improvement over their July performance, and it was a bit of a shorter set, and they had concentrated on their better songs. Consequencely, their songs were pretty fast, which brought the crowd into full gear by the middle of their set until their finale. They once again used their toolbox & microphone combination during Fourtune Teller (I really hope that this makes it into their next album, whenever that is.) and they got the crowd singing along for My Old Lady. They pulled out an incredible amoung of energy for their time on stage. They're still a new band, and had a couple of moments where they stumbled a little. They talked a little much between songs, but they've really started playing much better together as a group. Above all, it looked like they were having fun.

Set List: - Shelly - Time Is A Runaway - California - Going Home With You - Roxanne (Tease, The Police) - Fortune Teller (Toolbox) - Aftermath - Ordinary - My Old Lady

Paolo Nutini is an artist that I don't know a whole lot about, andreally didn't have a whole lot of time to research them. I've listenedto New Shoes a number of times, and was fairly surprised at how raspy hesounded, as if he's been on tour for a long time. He was also a bithunched over and seemed shy on stage in front of everyone, and took acouple of songs to really get a good flow going. They really kicked inwhen they got Trouble So High, a cover song, where the reggae sound really complimented his vocal work.

It took a while to get used to his voice, but it's different, and worked pretty well with his songs. The faster songs worked the best with him, such as New Shoes, Last Request and Trouble So High, as well as a couple of others. He also did a number of covers - 3 - which seemed like quite a bit compared to other concerts that I've gone to. By the end, it looked like he was beginning to enjoy himself, and the crowd certainly seemed to be enjoying the act - he was the main focus of the night, and the crowd got into his music much faster than they did with the Alternate Routes.

Set List - Alloway Groove - New Shoes - Rewind - These Streets - Autumn - Natural Blues (Moby Cover) - Millions Faces - 55 to 1 (New Song) - Everybody's Talking (Harry Nielssen Cover) - Last Request - Rainbows - Jenny, Don't Be Hasty Encore - Millions of Stones? - I Wan'na Be Like You (Louis Prima & Phil Harris Cover - From the Jungle Book) - Funky Cigarette

Both performers did very well on stage. The Alternate Routes seems to be improving their act, at least since I'd last seen them in July, and they performed a really good, if a short, set. They demonstrated a considerable amount of energy and really seemed to enjoy their time on stage. Paolo Nutini seemed to be a bit more shy in front of the crowd, but played a fun set that really got the crowd going, which was fun to watch, with a good blend of fast and slow songs. In both cases, they both played their radio singles early in the sets, which surprised me, but it seemed to work nicely. They built up to a finale with their faster songs and settled into some of the deeper tracks from their albums over course of the sets. A couple of people asked me what I was doing while I was writing down the set lists, which was interesting. I handed out this address to a couple of people, and if you're reading this, thanks for your interest and hope that you found this okay. I also talked with a husband and wife who were there with their daughter, and they seemed to enjoy their time there.

I'll get more pictures online at some point later today.

Hype - Buy - Look

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - Concert 2

Grace Potter kicked off her tour after the release of her latest album, This Is Somewhere, with a concert at the Waterfront Park in Burlington Vermont to a nearly packed venue. Their opening band, Josh Ritter, wasn't bad, but he was somewhat forgettable after last night's performance, athough he is worth looking into for a decent band. I went with my brother, whom we abandoned, and a friend who's just returned from Greece. I got a couple of tickets for two of our neighbors, but I wasn't able to find them anywhere.

This was my second time seeing the Nocturnals, and this performance topped their one a couple weeks ago at Club Metronome. For starters, they were in the open air, which helped Grace's sound by a tenfold. She no longer sounded as high and poppish as she did last time, this time, they had proper speakers, so there was no problems there. They launched into a fantastic set that included several songs from their prior album, Nothing But The Water, as well as a couple of ones that they've performed live before, such as Belledonna and Watching You. They also included a six or seven minute drum solo, with the entire band playing around the drumset before the end.

Like before, they had an incredible amount of energy and used it well. This set seemed to include a couple more faster songs than last time, and didn't seem to drag on as long, and with a much larger crowd, they seemed to feed off of the energy a bit more than they did last time.

Set List:

Ah Mary Treat Me Right Stop the Bus Here's To The Meantime Belledonna Apoligies (MP3) Lose Some Time (John-Something Cover w/ Josh Ritter) Falling Or Flying Mastermind I've Been Watching You (Unknown - Girls) Joey If I Was From Paris Drum Solo - 4-Way Nothing But The Water (1) Nothing But The Water (2) Cortez, The Killer Big White Gate

More pictures from the event: Here

We Used to Drive this Blue Ridge Laughing...

So, Carbon Leaf played in Vermont again last night. They must really like coming up here, because it's the fifth time in two years that they've made the trip, and I've gone to each of their concerts. Last night's set completely rocked, and really surprised me - They played more of their older stuff than from their newest album.

Set list:

-The Crane Wife 3 (Song on the speakers, guys came on and played along with it while warming up for a minute)
- Changeless
- Blue Ridge Laughing
- What About Everything?
- Torn to Tattered
- I'm On Fire (Bruce Springsteen Cover)
- Life Less Ordinary
- Desperation Song
- Love Loss Hope Repeat
- American Tale
- Grey Sky Eyes
- Under the Wire
- This Is My Song
- Texas Stars
- Raise the Roof
- The Boxer
- Encore
- Learn to Fly
- Let Your Troubles Roll By
- Bron-Y-Aur Stomp (Led Zepplin Cover)

This was a fantastic set list, and more older stuff than they usually play, which was really really cool. I've never heard American Tale or Blue Ridge Laughing live, and they sounded fantastic. I went with my friend Sam and his fiancee, Miranda, who are also big fans of the group, for their first concert with them. They also loved it. The speakers were playing the Decemberists's newer song The Crane Wife 3, and to warm up, the band members came on stage and played along for a minute or two, before launching right into Changeless.
The band sounded like they got off to a bit of a rocky start, but they hit their sound early on and really went off. Carter had some fantastic guitar solos throughout, and I think they knocked over three mike stands. Blue Ridge Laughing, I'm On Fire, Desperation Song, What About Everything, This Is My Song, Texas Stars, The Boxer, all fantastic songs. I was hoping that they'd play Comfort, but still - good set list.
One of the coolest things though, was that for their encore song, Learn to Fly, Barry, Terry and Carter grabbed their guitars and jumped into the crowd and went to the middle - TEN - TEN FEET FROM ME - and played Learn to Fly without mikes. Sounded incredible, and they got the entire crowd singing along. That was really cool, and I've never seen them do that before. My friend Eric from school was also there, and literally standing in front of them. Lucky him.

Really fun night.

Rest of the pictures are here: http://flickr.com/photos/jeditrilobite/

Before the Robots

Life has been going good recently. School's going well, work's going well, despite the increasing number of sketchy people walking around the Berlin Mall, things in general have been looking up, a big improvement over last year, where at this time, I was angry, depressed and hopeless.
Not to be depressing.
I'm enjoying work; business is picking up as the holiday season approaches. I've been making more sales while out in the kisok, which is a welcome change, as that job is horribly boring. Since we're not allowed to read while on the job, I basically have to amuse myself by walking in circles, straightening out calanders to the micron and bugging every customer if they need help with something. (They never do, they're just looking). I do get the occasional funny occurance, which is diverting. The last amusing thing happened last week: A woman burst into the mall, took about five steps in, looking like she was going somewhere important, dragging two small kids behind her. It was then that she stopped, looked around and turned to me: "Where is Optical Expression?" - the local eye glasses store and clinic. I didn't do anything but point. The store is just a store away from Walden Books. She turned and went in. The old guy sitting next to the kiosk in a wheel chair just laughed and said: "I guess she really needed those glasses." I guess so.
Today, I saw something like ten people that I a) know from school, ) know from school and haven't seen them in ages, c) knew from high school/elementary school, d) from scouts. It was weird.
The rest of the time is devoted to stewing.
I also found a movie that I really need to look into watching - The Iron Giant. I'd heard a bit about it a couple years ago, when a movie called The Incredibles, a fantastic animated film, was released, directed by Brad Bird, who had directed a box office failure called The Iron Giant. Despite it's lax returns, the movie had gained a sort of cult status (What good science fiction film DOESN'T develope a cult status nowadays?) and around the time of The Incredibles release, it was released on DVD. I'd read a couple DVD reviews, but I haven't actually gotten a chance to watch it, until I caught the last half hour or so of it on Cartoon Network this evening.
Man, what a good film - solid animation, fun storyline and likeable characters. It reminded me a lot of Titan AE, one of my favorite animated Science Fiction movies. I need to see the rest of Iron Giant, but I suspect that this will be included on the list. The basic plot is that a giant iron robot falls from the sky and lands near a small town in Maine. While there, he befriends a small boy, while the government comes after them to try and destroy the robot. I definently need to rent this at some point.
And I still need to bring my computer into Computer Services. I've been getting a bunch of popups lately, more than ever, and a lot of random applications that I suspect are spywear. I've run dozens of virus/bot/spyware checks, defragmented and optimized my harddrives, done error tests and am still having minor problems. It's driving me nuts.
And I'll post up my TV Recap sometime tonight. Haven't had a whole lot of time to finish it this week.

EDIT: YES! YES YES YES! Someone posted up the 10.23.06 Carbon Leaf Concert at the Higher Ground, the one that I went to with Keelia, where they sounded awesome - You can download all the songs here, although be warned, they're .Flac files, which are huge and require additional software to decode. You can play the files on Winamp. I'll get them all, and for those of you who know me, will be seeing me and who issued me death threats about attending this, would you like a copy?

Shout Out Loud

Just got back from Amos Lee's concert - He's really a great singer. Completely outstripped his opener - Dayna Kurtz- , was just awful. Not a great voice, her sound was all over the place and her guitar was pretty simplistic, songs lackluster. I was disapointed with her.
But Lee and his band was great. They seemed a little tired and cranky at first - he told a group of girls to cut it out with the flash photos, which was a good thing - but got into a groove right at the beginning. They did some fantastic renditions of Shout Out Loud, Keep It Loose Keep It Tight, Sweet Pea (One that I wasn't very fond of on the album, but live, it was amazing) and Night Train. He's got a great voice, although unlike Carbon Leaf, he didn't talk a whole lot to the crowd. He seemed not really nervous, but not talkative and slightly out of place. On stage while playing, he dominated, completely. The other guys in his band were great as well. Here's the set list. It's not complete, because they played several new songs that I'd not heard, but they were pretty good.

• Dreamin'
• Seen it All Before
• Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight
• Bottom of the Barrel
• Supply and Demand
• Truth?
• Sweet Pea
• Lulliby
• Freedom
• The Wind
• Soul Suckers
• Black River
• Shout Out Loud
• Night Train
• Long Line of Pain
• Arms of A Woman

So yeah, great evening, had quite a bit of fun, and was amused that there was a band next door called Hellbreath, a heavy metal outfit. Two extremes.

What About Everything?

My ears are ringing, I'm still shaking from the excitement, and I'm back from the Carbon Leaf concert over at Higher Ground this evening.

Those guys fucking rock.

I've never seen them better, and man, they had a great setlist and amazing energy. Barry was bouncing all over the stage, along with everyone else, and some of those songs were just amazing. I took Keelia (my younger sister) along, and she also had a great time. One of my professors from Norwich was there with his significant other, and Keelia saw a number of people from her school there.

Set list:

1. Comfort
2. What About Everything?
3. One Prairie Outpost
4. Under The Wire
5. Love Loss Hope Repeat
6. Life Less Ordinary
7. Texas Stars
8. Russian Dance (Tchaikovsky) Intro To...
9. Paloma
10. Royal One
11. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
12. Block Of Wood
13. Let Your Troubles Roll By
14. Learn To Fly
15. Intro To...
16. Desperation Song
17. The War Was In Color
18. The Boxer

Great, great set list. There were a couple of random songs that I'd hoped would be there, such as This Is My Song or Native America, as well as a couple others from Echo Echo, but this was just awesome. Sigh, I should probably sleep now.

Edit/Addition: Want to hear a similar playlist from the same tour and setlist? Archive.org has a concert from Colorado that's quite good and easy to access, here. They don't seem to have as much energy as the VT group last night - the crowd was great, really enjoyed themselves.
I don't think that I've ever heard them better. The past three times that I'd seen them, they were really good, but this time they were really into it. The opening band, Matt Nathanson was good. They were funny, as most of the opening acts seem to be, and they had some good songs, but Carbon Leaf just blew them out of the water.
Note to self: Don't stand under a speaker. My ears were ringing all last night. I bought a shirt, with some of the LLHR artwork on it, which I really like. I actually remembered my camera last night, a first for me, and all my pictures that I took are here. Unfortunently, they don't seem to be in the proper order.
The opening band, Matt Nathanson was good. They were funny, as most of the opening acts seem to be, and they had some good songs, but Carbon Leaf just blew them out of the water. However, Matt reading a trashy romance novel to a racy bass beat was priceless, as was his quote:

"Oh Vermont, you liberal bastion of the north."

Drew quite a bit of laughter from the crowd. I'll have to look into some of his stuff if I get the chance.

Note to self: Don't stand under a speaker. My ears were ringing all last night. I bought a shirt, with some of the LLHR artwork on it, which I really like. I actually remembered my camera last night, a first for me, and all my pictures that I took are here. Unfortunently, they don't seem to be in the proper order.
They had the best rendition of Bron-Y-Aur Stomp that I've heard yet, as well as great versions of Love Loss Hope Repeat, Comfort, Texas Stars, Desperation Song, the War Was In Color and The Boxer. Great opening songs and they went out with a bang with that one.

Man, what an awesome night. Next week is Amos Lee, whom I'm also excited about.

Breathe in the Night

I'm seeing Carbon Leaf tonight! This will mark the 4th time that I'll be going to one of their shows, and my third at the Higher Ground. I'm excited. They're great in person, and Love Loss Hope Repeat has some really good songs on it. I'm taking Keelia, my sister, along with me, and one of my professors from school is also going. Should be a fun time. I saw them this summer, and they sounded fantastic.

I'm actually going to remember to bring my camera this time, so I'll get some pictures. Hopefully.

I'm also getting my cast off today, officially. It'll be nice to finally not have to worry about it and get my hand back.

EDIT: 1606 : It's off! Finally!

Leaf Tea and Carbon Wood

Carbon Leaf was up last night, so I went up to see them again for the second time. I left after school and drove up to Church Street. Bought a couple of new comics- Astonishing X-Men #12, the end of Joss Whedon's run with them, in which I really need to pick up the first nine issues, because what I've read is amazing. I also got the Amazing Spiderman 523, which completely blew my socks off. Amazing art and story. I then went over to Quiznos where I hung out with a couple of friends working there. On the way back to my car, I ran into a band that I've listened to for as long as I can remember, the Wood's Tea Co. which my parents listened to a lot when I was young, and a band that I've always liked. Because I had time, I sat and listened to them for a while. Great folk band with some great songs.
From there, I went to the main event of the evening, the Steve Kellogg and the Sixers and Carbon Leaf. I arrived at about 8:30 and there was already a huge line. I got in line, got my tickets and hung around for a while. Steve Kellogg's band came on, and they were a very fun band to listen to. I'm definently going to look into their stuff further. They looked like they were having an incredible time up on stage, and had a huge amount of energy to boot.
There was a stage switch that probably lasted around twenty or so minutes, then Carbon Leaf came on stage to a lot of applause. I had chills down my spine, as they started Changeless, Let Your Troubles Roll By, The Boxer, One Prarie Outpost, Screen Door, Life Less Ordinary. They talked for a couple more minutes, then continued with Ordinary Eyes, I Know the Reason, Desperation Song, This is My Song, Happy Birthday (for someone in the audiance), A new song called Porpoise, Torn to Tattered, Paloma. They then left, came back on for a very long ovation, then did a random song, then finished up with What About Everything?. They were amazing, did some awesome numbers of songs, loved their new song and just being there. With the Steve Kellogg Band, people sang along with some of the songs that they covered, but with Carbon Leaf, the audiance, me included, sang just about every song that they did. It was a very cool feeling. They didn't play Mary Mac, which was a little disapointing.
They ended at about midnight, and I got back home at one, my ears ringing something bad. I wasn't standing next to a speaker or anything, but I was so tired that it didn't matter. I flopped into bed and was out in a couple seconds. It was an awesome night.

New York

Just got back from New York, which proved to be a very enjoyable trip. We flew down on Saturday, which was much better than driving. An eight hour trip was now 45 or so minutes, which was outstanding. The flight was good, and we had no problems getting to our hotel room. I think that we were in the same room that we were in last time we went down, for the same occasion. After checking in, we wandered around for a couple hours, taking in some of the sights. We later met up with Dan, who had spent the week down there already. I went back with him to his hotel, catching up, and we took a cab to get dinner with everyone at a great Italian resturaunt. From there, we went to the performance, which was outstanding. Three bands played, with some pieces that I recognized, some that were new, and all were outstanding. This morning, my bother and sister went with me to Central Park, where we walked around for a little while before heading back to a fair/market that was going on 7th Ave. I bought a small Chinese plate set that's pretty cool looking. Tried to find a bootlegged copy of Revenge of the Sith or Hitchhiker's Guide, but no luck. Got back on the plane and headed home. Good trip.

I got to do a fair amount of reading on the flight, something that I haven't had much time to do recently. I finished Karen Traviss's Crossing the Line, the second book in her series. (Which was just upped to six books total) Outstanding novel. I think that Traviss is my favorite author. I can't wait for her next one to come out, The World Beyond, which is out later this year. Also just started Cagebird, the third in Karin Lowachee's trilogy, which is proving to be a good read as well. If you haven't read either of these two authors, I'd highly recommend them.

Just saw my Spring 2005 semester transcript- Nothing below a C. That's a huge relief for me, and a full two letter grades higher for two classes than I predicted. wOOt!