Javelin opened, and were fun and all, but I would really prefer to see them at a much smaller venue… I bet they’d have fed off the crowd’s energy more at the Parish, their original venue, where everyone would’ve been crammed into a seething mass. They just seemed too detached from the audience last night. Still fun, though.

If you’ve been to a few shows around town since the fall, you’ve likely seen Thax (ok, I thought his name was Dax for a few months, my bad). He’s the guy who writes a poem in honor of the band and reads it before their performance. Love this guy!

Yeasayer played their greatest hits, mostly, though a friend and I were a bit bereft that Tight Rope was left out (I’ve had so so so much love for that song since first hearing the snippet of it at the end of that one Take-Away Show). They did, however, end with Red Cave, which is one of my favorites. So many gorgeous harmonies.

Lastly, my camera broke last night right at the beginning of 2080; have to mail it in to Canon today. Kinda heartbroken.

Yeasayer’s new album, Odd Blood, is supposedly even trippier than the first, and though it drops February 9th, you can check it out weeks ahead of time this Friday at both Waterloo Records and End of an Ear. And while you’re thinking of them, you should probably buy your tickets for one of their two Parish shows before they sell out.

NPR is streaming Spoon’s new album in its entirety, and what I’ve listened to so far is pretty kickass. You can catch them live for free at a Waterloo Records in-store Monday the 25th at 4pm, but if you want to actually make it in the building, I’d recommend showing up very, very early. They’re also kicking off SXSW with a show that Wednesday at Stubbs.

Vampire Weekend’s Contra is also streaming, and there’s a listening party for it Tuesday night at Scoot Inn. Sadly, I don’t have any pics of them yet, though they are playing Stubbs April 10th so I can maybe remedy that.

Oh yeah, and my Free Week photos will be up asap.

Next, Vega… I’ve seen them a couple of times before, and they are always an awesome dance party.

Then Red Sparrowes, who I hadn’t heard before but really was diggin’… post-rock out of LA.

After a few songs, I booked it to Dead Confederate, who I purely by happenstance hung out with a couple times at last year’s fest without having any idea of who they were.

No Age

Neon Indian

Was kinda sad to leave before the end of their set, but I had to catch Yeasayer. Ambling Alp has been stuck in my head since I first heard it, and I wanted to hear it live. I really really liked their new material!

I jaunted over to Shearwater after that, but haven’t edited those yet… let’s just skip ahead to Ratatat, whose on-stage antics (backbending guitar moves, swilling vodka from the bottle!) were almost as entertaining as the music.