Saw Thurston Last Night
 

Good show. Kim and Coco were out in the crowd watching. Set was mostly new album w/ a tiny bit of Trees Outside the Academy and a spirited sloppy "Queen Bee and Her Pals", "Psychic Hearts" encore. Kurt Vile opened and was likely the bigger draw, though Thurston's crowd response was hugely enthusiastic at the end. While I still prefer seeing Sonic Youth and having him on the electric guitar, I enjoyed it a lot and it seemed a lot more evolved than on the Tree's tour. Forgot my damn camera.

Nice! I wish he woujld play a venue show here. I mean....he played Pitchfork.....WTF!

The guy has such stage charisma, he can kind of fuck up a lot, and get away with it. Which isn't a bad thing. His banter is totally amusing.

Saw him in Vancouver and I've never seen him lose a crowd more.

Maybe I should be glad he's not doing a DC/Baltimore show.

He talked about that Vancouver show in Portland, apparently it was a complete nightmare for the whole band. Said they'd been on the road for 30 hours without a stop and that the border guards thoroughly demoralized everyone and then the club sucked. Of course it may be that he was justifying the set you describe, but I found the Portland show to be WAY better than the Trees tour, despite the lack of Steve on the kit. Drummer from Sunburned the Hand was a pretty damn cool substitute.

If it comes down to having a crowd with him, he had this one eating out of his hand, and the demand for an encore was more than sincere.

Sorry Jenn, but you really are missing out. ;)

Wasn't the border trouble after the Vancouver show heading towards Seattle?

No, the venue in Vancouver wasn't great. Plus I had to walk through 5 blocks of junkies to get there (scary). I guess I'll go to Seattle Jr. next time (Portland).

As a Seattle native living in Portland, I can see why you are dishing the Jr., but it isn't entirely accurate. Portland is like Seattle was in 1985-88 minus the great rock scene but plus a lot of great noise bands and arty strip clubs. It's more like an alternate reality time machine than a descendent.

The border trouble was heading in the way Thurston told it, right after 30 hours of Montana, Idaho, and Eastern Washington. He mentioned the 5 blocks of junkies too, and said it'd been a long time since he'd been in that type of scene, and that the club was just pure concrete.

I've seen bands I really like play on nights like that, and yeah, I felt ripped off even though it wasn't likely their fault. When you are young and punk you can just get wasted and rage and be brilliant in such a setting, but Thurston doing his Nick Drake impersonation sure wasn't going to pull that angle off. Glad I saw him in the friendlier terrain.

Whoa, just got done posting the above and stumbled upon this: http://vimeo.com/23739500

Minus the strip clubs and tax rate, Portland just seems like Seattle but on a smaller scale and with more meth. I fail to see the point of having less of the good stuff (music, arts, people, etc). People seem to bounce back and forth between cities to "rebuild" their lives in a new image (bullshit).


Damn... he mentioned that shit too huh? Not surprising... it didn't feel real. It was like walking through a hollywood set that seemed over the top.
I think the sound system (or lack thereof) was the venue's worst enemy.





It was a 50/50 coin flip between Portland and Vancouver and going to Canada felt more like a mini-vacation. Bands have off nights... shit happens.

No real reason to belabor a Seattle vs. Portland debate. If you like where you live, more power to you. I like where I live too. When I left Seattle to finish school in Olympia in 1993, I felt like it wasn't my city anymore. Nevermind and Microsoft (and Amazon, et. al.) had transformed the place into somewhere where everyone you talked to was sure they were going to "make it big" and the cost of living was just absolutely insane. Two economic crashes later, and I find myself a lot more comfortable when I visit these days, but it's still way cheaper to live in PDX. And there really is more art and music down here than anyone could know what to do with; I can't compare it to Seattle because I'm not that aware of what's going on in Seattle these days. Maybe there is a scene under the surface that rivals what I experienced in the mid '80s before the world caught on and made it unbearably big and miserable. I suspect it's probably more like PDX with a godawful lot of derivative "indie rock" bands filling all the clubs, but if it wasn't I wouldn't know better. I am pretty connected with the experimental and noise scene up there, and there is still more going on down here overall, buy you've got Blue Sabbath Black Fiji and we don't! Portland is actually bigger than Seattle in terms of square feet, but Seattle does have a larger population density, and a way cooler looking downtown (thank you corporations for building those gorgeous black towers!) I moved here partly for the 5 degrees warmer weather, but then it's been raining like a motherfucker here too for the past two years, so, oh well. Live where you are comfortable, I say. Or uncomfortable if that makes you do good things.

I like Portandia alright.

Break up with girlfriend move to Portland ->
Break up with boyfriend move to Seattle ->
on and on and on
fuck em all and move to Vancouver and start doing heroin.