"Concert Report: Pedro the Lion, Stratford 4, Seldom, Sarah Shannon (Noisepop!)": 03/01/2002

03/01/2002 Entry: "Concert Report: Pedro the Lion, Stratford 4, Seldom, Sarah Shannon (Noisepop!)"

This show was at Slim's, which is an OK place to see a show. I decided on this show because I wanted something a little mellow and because I wanted easy parking. Not very high expectations, but since my trusty fellow-badge-holder wasn't going with tonight I had to go out alone. Didn't need high expectations to add any pressure to that.

First up was Sarah Shannon (note: that is the worst musician web site ever currently), the former lead singer of Velocity Girl. I liked VG well enough, despite whatever weird emotional associations I have with it, so I wanted to see how her solo stuff was. It was OK, she has a good voice, but she seemed a little nervous. Not having heard any of her solo stuff before I couldn't get into it too much. I think if I were a real VG fan, though, I would be very excited about it.

Seldom (I think that is the right site!) was up next, and they turned out to be the people who had been backing up Sarah, plus a person, I think. It was adequate, but nothing that jumped out at me. Of course, by this point I was really missing having someone with to compare notes to and fill the time between sets. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood.

The Stratford 4 were good enough to get me out of that funk, though, because I thoroughly enjoyed their set. The lead singer guy totally went rock star at the end with his guitar, and had some reasonable crowd interaction throughout. Yeah!

By the time Pedro the Lion finally started playing, though, I found myself surrounded by a few couples that were getting snuggly. Umm, not what I needed at that point. I gave Pedro a few songs, but was unimpressed. I think if I had known the songs I could have gotten into it more, especially since the lyrics were really hard to make out, but he was playing everything from his next album, so there was no was I could have done that. He tried to do some crowd interaction, including taking questions, but it was just kind of uncomfortable to watch. Later, I wondered if that is how non-Mountain Goats fans feel at Mountain Goats concerts. The songs were much more intense than I expected, though, so I decided I had no good reason to try to wait it out.

Overall, not a great night, but that was in large part due to circumstances. It makes me think being a music critic that goes to see lots of shows would not be that fun all the time. But I did go to the show, so I can still aim for going every day of the festival. Whooo!

And I need to remember to include a rant about the lameness of the all-show badges at some point.