Ben Gibbard, David Bazan, Johnathan Rice

Ben Gibbard, David Bazan, Johnathan Rice
Went to another concert last night -- my last paid concert for a while. From now until Bonnaroo, all my entertainment will have to be free. The weird thing about concerts is that you have to buy tickets so far ahead of time that you end up going to concerts when you're "poor" and not when you're back on your feet.

Anyway, I saw Ben Gibbard at the TLA with Nicole and her friend Sue. More specifically, I saw three male acoustic performers: Johnathan Rice, David Bazan, and Ben Gibbard. Gibbard had control of the crowd and had more star quality, but I enjoyed David Bazan just as much.

Johnathan Rice had a rough time with the crowd, which talked a lot through his set. It wasn't bad at all by Philly standards, but many of his songs were quiet and earnest, and I can see why he was distracted. But it was strange -- it seemed like he had never encountered this problem before. I think it's stupid to not pay attention to opening bands, even if you're just trying to show your slavish devotion to the headliner. But I also think that an opening musician has to expect a certain amount of assholery from an audience. Dues must be paid. With that said, I liked Rice's music. His lyrics were interesting. He managed to get a large part of the crowd to sing along on a song about the desert and eyes being picked out...something not exactly like that. I'll definitely check out his recordings.

I loved David Bazan. I'm familiar with his "band", Pedro the Lion (of which he eventually became the only member), but I'm pretty sure I never saw them live. He reminded me a little bit of Sam Beam, at least in his stage presence. He sings about subjects that many teenyhipsters in the audience couldn't relate to yet (marriage, ambivalence about fatherhood, divorce). I think this was partly why he struggled with the crowd talking as well. But his voice is much louder and fuller than Rice's, and was more than capable of drowning it out. He covered a familiar song by someone -- Radiohead, I thought, but I can't remember which one. I'm bad with song titles anyway.

Gibbard unleashed a variety of covers: Donovan, Nirvana ("All Apologies"), The Mountain Goats (!), and Michael Jackson's "Thriller". He pointed out that "Such Great Heights" is a cover -- Sam Beam wrote it and the Postal Service covered it. I loved the set list -- "A Lack of Color" (one of my all-time favorites), "I Will Follow You into the Dark", "I Was a Kaleidoscope", "Crooked Teeth", "The Sound of Settling".

It was great to see him in such a small space -- much like seeing Colin Meloy solo. The stage was bare except for a green banker's lamp, putting the full focus on each of the performers. None played with backing musicians. None played together. At the end of the show, Gibbard assured us that he "wasn't blowing smoke up our asses" when he said that this had been the best show of the tour. The crowd was amazingly respectful of Gibbard, and amazingly quiet (except for singing along) through the songs. I didn't need earplugs, but I had to cover my left ear at the end of each song, when the girl next to me screamed loudly. All in all (is all we all are) it was worth seeing these musicians in this small space. I don't think it would work at a festival or at the cursed Electric Factory, so I felt lucky to be able to see them at the TLA.