random acts of senseless beauty

sorry for the radio silence…

There’s been two trips to ULU that I need to mention. The first was last week for The Decemberists and it was brilliant. What was particularly goos was that I was totally exhausted, and at lunchtime was wondering whether I wanted to go at all… but I made the effort, and it was totally worth it. Just what I needed.

I really like the album, Picaresque (Badly Drawn Boyo, who came with me, would cite it as his favourite of the year) but I wasn’t too sure what to expect. I was a really good ’show’ that reminded me in part of the good bits of Bare Naked Ladies gigs (i.e. silly and fun but not stupid), but better… there’s 6 or 7 of them, all totally going for it, having fun and never missing a beat, but the theatrics seem less rehearsed. It was the encore that had me though: They came back on to do the most amazing version of Mr Blue Sky by ELO. that song in itself makes it into my top gig moments of the year. genius.

This evening was, on the other hand, a complete disappointment. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were the buzz band of this years CMJ festival in New York, and even talked about before that in the summer. A 5 piece from Brooklyn they’ve sold around 250,000 albums in the states out of their apartment. The album is pretty good but the gig tonight was really not. The sound at the start was horrendous, they were messy and out of tune, and on top of all that the singers quirky vocals seemed less endearing and more apalling. It did improve as the set went on, but Jacqs and I went for the option of a slightly earlier night and quit before the end.

Now I’m just tired and a bit teary and already waiting for the weekend. humph.