Huh?
I really don't know what to think of the set I saw tonight. I don't know if it was the act or other circumstances, but I was less than impressed.
First of all, I didn't think I would actually go, having gone to the full moon hash earlier that night. But, since we were done by 10 and the advertised time of the show was 10, I made it. I didn't get to Stubb's until 10:20 or so, but I was immediately surprised that Mark Olson was playing already. Every other show I've been to lately had a start time in the paper of at least half an hour if not an hour before they actually start playing. But this was an indoor Stubb's show and I'd never been to one there, so this could've been normal for the locale, I wouldn't know. I was also surprised by the size of the audience, only 20-30 people (I counted at one point). Next, why was there a 10 foot buffer between the front of the stage and the audience? Maybe that's another Stubb's thing.
The music sounded good, very professional, but it didn't grab me at all. I know I'm not very interested when I'm actually trying to understand the lyrics instead of paying attention to the music. The line-up was Mark on acoustic guitar and vocals, one guy trading off between violin and keyboard, and one gal trading off between bongo and keyboard and singing back-up vocal. At one point she was supposed to play guitar, but after a minute or so of trying to tune to Mark's guitar Mark said "you're way off" and realizing it would take too long to fix, she was demoted to bongo. Another strange thing happened a song or two later, when Mark stepped out into the audience, exchanged a few words with someone, and upon returning to the stage said something like "this is weird, man" back to the guy. I wonder what he was referring to? He ended the set before 11:00 and in some way left the impression that it was the end of the show--again, not knowing how Stubb's exactly works, maybe there could've been another set. But I was happy to go at that point, being a work night and having been worn out by the hash earlier.
First of all, I didn't think I would actually go, having gone to the full moon hash earlier that night. But, since we were done by 10 and the advertised time of the show was 10, I made it. I didn't get to Stubb's until 10:20 or so, but I was immediately surprised that Mark Olson was playing already. Every other show I've been to lately had a start time in the paper of at least half an hour if not an hour before they actually start playing. But this was an indoor Stubb's show and I'd never been to one there, so this could've been normal for the locale, I wouldn't know. I was also surprised by the size of the audience, only 20-30 people (I counted at one point). Next, why was there a 10 foot buffer between the front of the stage and the audience? Maybe that's another Stubb's thing.
The music sounded good, very professional, but it didn't grab me at all. I know I'm not very interested when I'm actually trying to understand the lyrics instead of paying attention to the music. The line-up was Mark on acoustic guitar and vocals, one guy trading off between violin and keyboard, and one gal trading off between bongo and keyboard and singing back-up vocal. At one point she was supposed to play guitar, but after a minute or so of trying to tune to Mark's guitar Mark said "you're way off" and realizing it would take too long to fix, she was demoted to bongo. Another strange thing happened a song or two later, when Mark stepped out into the audience, exchanged a few words with someone, and upon returning to the stage said something like "this is weird, man" back to the guy. I wonder what he was referring to? He ended the set before 11:00 and in some way left the impression that it was the end of the show--again, not knowing how Stubb's exactly works, maybe there could've been another set. But I was happy to go at that point, being a work night and having been worn out by the hash earlier.
Labels: music
posted by PlaysByEar at 12:05 AM
3 Comments:
Oh man... Was he wearing a sweatervest?
I'm pretty sure he was!
Hmmm... Maybe if they 30 seconds to pre-tune their instruments with a tuner *before* their set they'd have over 30 people at their show. But what do I know...
Post a Comment
<< Home