my ears!
last night i went to hear built to spill at the showbox in seattle with emily, jenny and sandy. we got there at 7 - by which i mean to say that we stood in line, beginning at 7. the house opened at 7:40, and the opening band started at around 8. so we kinda took pictures of ourselves, and it was amusing.
the opening band was decent, but they had problems with intonation (standing too far away from each other, i think, was the issue). [fyi: i don't know the other two bands' names.] the second group got me all riled up before they even began playing because there was a marimba onstage, and i made the comment that i should probably buy their cd just because of the guitar/vocalist + marimba action. and then they played. for an hour. and the marimba played arpeggios up and down, up and down the entire time. at one point the guitarist sang, "give california back to mexico," as well as the uplifting lyrics, "they end their lives because it's all they know" (something like that, over and over again).
by the time we got to built to spill, my ears were ringing in such a way that i'd given some serious thought to switching my profession. (and they're still ringing right now, which is a little frightening - but wholly expected, especially when you show up at the shobox w/o earplugs...) bts was great, but by then i was too distracted by my aching back (i weeded for four hours yesterday afternoon) and my throbbing, strobing ears to really pay that much attention. in the future, i think that if i'm interested in a band, i'll need to simply buy a cd of theirs and listen to it in my room, quietly.