Dial Up/2nd Ave, 11 AM/Me And Mia/Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone?/The High Party/The One Who Got Us Out/Counting Down The Hours/Little Dawn/Heart Problems/Biomusicology/Timorous Me/Hearts Of Oak/Shake The Sheets//encore: My Vien Ilin/Six Months In A Leaky Boat/(?)
It was cool to see Ted in a place as big as the 9:30 for the first time. I kind of got a concept of how much his fanbase has grown just from my immediate experiences more than the size of the venue, though: 3 years ago, I went to Ted Leo shows alone, then 2 years ago, my girlfriend starting going to see him with me, then last year, J.G.'s brother John came a long for a show, and this time, it was both of them plus John's girlfriend. I wasn't even really trying to get all of them into the music, it just kind of caught on.
Not quite the best show I've seen Ted do, but maybe the best setlist. I mean, the whole first half the set was nothing but songs I wanted to hear, and I can only think of a couple I was hoping for that weren't played. I liked how a big chunk of Shake The Sheets was played in the running order, too. I put that album high on my top ten last year, but I don't think it completely grew on me until the last few months. And last time I saw him was right before it dropped, so this was really the first show that I got to hear the songs live after getting to know those songs. Ted never seems to do very good encores, though. It was cool to hear "Six Months" with the full band, and I don't think I'd ever heard "My Vien Ilin" live before, and the last song was a familiar cover but I couldn't quite place what it was. But still, such a short and anticlimactic encore. It wouldn't kill him to hold back a crowd-pleaser or two for the very end of the show, y'know?
I've griped a little about the Pharmacists in the past, but I think the rhythm section has tightened up a little over the past couple years, and I'm liking the power trio lineup. The drummer, Chris, makes little mistakes a lot less often now, which used to frustrate me, even though I'm a drummer and I know how it is, a hundred things can go wrong with that many pieces to your instrument. And as much as I love when Ted ramps up the tempo and his strumming hand becomes a blur, sometimes I feel like they just go overboard with it and certain songs would benefit from being played at the tempo they're at on the record. I mean, I love "Little Dawn", but it was so rushed it fell like it was about to fall apart, and at the last show it was a personal highlight. Really, I'm nitpicking, which happens when I see a band enough times to notice differences between individual shows, but it was a good night. J.G. wanted to watch from the balcony, which was cool but kind of a change of pace for me. For all the dozens of shows I've seen at the 9:30, I think there've been maybe 3 or 4 where I've spent any amount of time up on the 2nd level. It's a good view, though, I should do it more often.
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on Saturday, June 25, 2005 at 4:16 AM.
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Re : TED LEO. mmmm not the best show he's done, indeedsy. i don't know what it was, but their sound seemed way off from where we were standing. Hi, sound check, it's me Margaret.
much better last year at Black Cat