Saw Annuals, Manchester Orchestra, and Moonalice last night, and I saw all for free. FOR FREE I TELLS YA. I won tickets to the Annuals/MO show at Great Scott. Annuals were good. Not great, not excellent, just plain old good. Certain segments of the music reached greatness, but each song on the whole just didn't hold it all together. There were bits to love, like a slinky bass line here, double drummer beat downs there, shredding guitar lines, but when it came down to it the actual songs just didn't do a ton for me. The musicianship on the whole was great, and the lead guy was pretty amazing, good voice, played a good guitar, some nice keys, and killed on the drums. Everything he sang was the most important thing he ever said, unfortunately I couldn't understand any of it. Not sure it was even in english a lot of the time. He completely reminded me Dominic Monaghan (Charlie from Lost--the hobbit) both physically and the way he carried himself. I imagine it was much like seeing Driveshaft in a way. Oh Charlie, how we'll miss you next season...sob. Also, speaking of lookalikes, the keyboardist looked like Molly Ringwald dressed for Little House on the Prairie but acting in the Stepford Wives. Weirdly distracting.
Then Manchester Orchestra came on. The lead singer was a big guy, looked like a roadie or bouncer. At first I thought he was one. Then he started singing. Wait, that is him singing right? Sounded like a woman. Specifically kinda like Tegan and/or Sara. The music was heavy and we just weren't into it too much so we left and headed up the block a bit to catch the tail end of Moonalice at Harpers Ferry which was a great call. Walked right in. Into the beautiful sounds of Barry Sless slicing up a nice Stella Blue and serving it up nice and hot. Ripping pedal steel solo. Ahhhhhhhhh... We went from being near the oldest if not THE oldest at Great Scott to being the youngest by what was probably a pretty good margin at Harpers. They attracted quite the mix of aging hippies. Disappointingly the crowd was sparse at best. To be fair it was past midnight and near the end of the set so it could have dispersed, but I doubt it was ever too crowded. Which is too bad because this band was stellar. A bunch of old men up there, but damn they can play. G.E. Smith, Jack Cassady, Barry Sless, Pete Sears... A nice nightcapper.
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