BT / Thomas Dolby at The Birchmere
On the spur of the last minute we went to the BT and Thomas Dolby show at The Birchmere tonight. Speaking of The Birchmere, if you've been by the AFI Silver lately you've probably seen the sign: The Birchmere is opening a second music hall in Silver Spring. scherzoid and fortryll were there too.
The show was really good! Dolby's head-mounted camera was a very interesting feature, and his story about the K-Fed saga was hilarious - I'm glad it's been resolved so he could tell us about it. (Details here and here.) Dolby also did a couple of improvised/jam style songs, building them up one track at a time, after telling a funny story about how he got started doing that in concert and why he continued. He also talked a bit about his interest in astronomy and using it to make music, and played a song that used solar observation data from the SOHO satellite to create part of the song. (Check out the animations of solar activity!) This of course made me think of astrophysicist and musician Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, so I wasn't surprised to find the 2 have worked together in the past.
BT's show was impressive too, and certainly a departure from his older work. I'm pretty sure it's the kind of album that really rewards multiple listenings. He let the music speak for itself but didn't have much stage presence. I went in expecting to enjoy BT's set far more but I actually preferred Dolby's. They also crossed over a little bit: Ben Grossman from BT's band played electric (well, acoustic electric) hurdy-gurdy on one song; Dolby and BT sang duet on another.
I'm amazed the show wasn't sold out, especially since it was a relatively cheap ticket and the next to last show of the tour. We seem to be catching the tail end of tours; the show we saw last week was the final one of the tour.
The show was really good! Dolby's head-mounted camera was a very interesting feature, and his story about the K-Fed saga was hilarious - I'm glad it's been resolved so he could tell us about it. (Details here and here.) Dolby also did a couple of improvised/jam style songs, building them up one track at a time, after telling a funny story about how he got started doing that in concert and why he continued. He also talked a bit about his interest in astronomy and using it to make music, and played a song that used solar observation data from the SOHO satellite to create part of the song. (Check out the animations of solar activity!) This of course made me think of astrophysicist and musician Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, so I wasn't surprised to find the 2 have worked together in the past.
BT's show was impressive too, and certainly a departure from his older work. I'm pretty sure it's the kind of album that really rewards multiple listenings. He let the music speak for itself but didn't have much stage presence. I went in expecting to enjoy BT's set far more but I actually preferred Dolby's. They also crossed over a little bit: Ben Grossman from BT's band played electric (well, acoustic electric) hurdy-gurdy on one song; Dolby and BT sang duet on another.
I'm amazed the show wasn't sold out, especially since it was a relatively cheap ticket and the next to last show of the tour. We seem to be catching the tail end of tours; the show we saw last week was the final one of the tour.