Oceans Never Listen To Us

I went to two shows this past week: Portugal. The Man on Tuesday night at the Clubhouse in Tempe, and the Dodos at the Modified Arts in Phoenix.

I only recently started listening to Portugal. The Man and can’t believe I hadn’t heard of them sooner than this year.  Their new album “The Satanic Satanist” is one of the best albums I’ve heard this year (not THE best – that title belongs to Sunset Rubdown’s “Dragonslayer” – IMO, of course).  While at the show I picked up “Censored Colors” and have had both albums in pretty heavy play rotation.  If you haven’t had the chance to explore myspace music, it really is a great place to stream entire albums if you are on the fence about a purchase.  I know I know, going to myspace is usually a sucky experience, so here is the direct link to the new PTM album:
The Satanic Satanist

There were two opening bands at the PTM show: Robert Francis and Drug Rug.  I thought Robert Francis had a wonderful voice, but I just couldn’t get into his music which was bit a folksy w/ a country twang. My friend that I ran into at the bar completely agreed with me about the voice vs. music.  Drug Rug were entertaining in that they had a female guitarist who really got into her performance. It’s not often that you see a female guitarist just rock out onstage, so that was a bit refreshing to see. 

Someone at the Clubhouse show taped a bunch of the PTM songs and did a pretty decent job, here is one of them:

On to the Dodos at the Modified.  Apparently, the owner of the Modified has decided to stop all larger live shows at their venue and focus strictly on the art and smaller local shows.  To be honest, that is perfectly fine with me because i do not enjoy going to larger shows here. It is too goddamn small inside.  But, I will concede that I’m also old and get irritated easily, so I can understand why some people are upset about this as the Modified is truly the place to be ’seen’ if you are into that hipster bullshit.  But, this will not take effect until December I believe, so we were forced to see the Dodos in this tiny art house.

On that note, the Dodos are way too big to be playing at the Modified.  We arrived late and missed all opening acts, but luckily had purchased tix beforehand because the show was sold out.  There were bunches of people hanging around outside, and at least 3 people tried to buy tix and were denied while we were getting our hands stamped. One funny guy: “is it still sold out?” We took our place in the very back of the crowd and couldn’t see anything except the top of Meric’s head.  Well, I could see the top of Meric’s head – my friend is shorter than I, so she probably only saw the back of people’s heads.

Let me also tell you why I hate these packed shows inside small venues – people are douchebags.  I cannot stand someone rudely pushing their way through the crowd to get in front of others who got there early to be close.  I heard a girl who was pushing past me say “let’s muscle our way to the front!” I hate the horrible concert etiquette that has begun to get out of control at shows lately.  I constantly feel like I have to firmly hold my ground with elbows out less I end up with someone thinking there is room for them in the 8 inches between myself and the dude in front of me. Okay, end rant.

Overall, the Dodos were really good live – in sound – wish I could have actually seen them.  One of the things that really captured my attention about them at Sasquatch! this summer was how into their performance they were.  I hadn’t even heard their album “Visiter” when I saw them at Sasquatch!, but we checked them out during some downtime and I enjoyed them so much that I raved about them when I got back home and bought their album.  The new album “Time To Die” is really great too, and I highly recommend picking up both if you have the means

I couldn’t find any good videos uploaded on youtube of the Modified show, so here is an acoustic version of ‘Acorn Factory’:

LOTS more shows coming up this month and next. Yo La Tengo on October 14th – I hope to have pictures and a review. Yay for Fall concerts in Arizona