Muddy Waters 21 March 2008

So Eliza is trying to convince me to go see Damien Jurado and Laura Gibson at Muddy Waters on May 4th. Getting me to leave my hermitage is difficult.

We saw an awesome show at Muddy Waters on 21 March 2008. Bon Iver, Phosphorescent, and White Hinterland. The story about that show is pretty good, so:

I'd read a review of Bon Iver's For Emma Forever Ago and it seemed like an interesting album. About a month later, the day of the show, Eliza randomly was surfing the interweb and found out about it. She then proceeded to bug me about it all day, and I was being stuborn. But I listened to his show at the 9:30 club in DC that NPR recorded, and listened to the myspace music pages of Bon Iver, Phosphorescent, and White Hinterland. And kinda begrudgingly realized I might have to leave the hermitage, a.k.a. Trattoria Scorpacciata.

So went home at 5 or whatever. Put on some bike shorts to ride downtown. Psyched myself up. And then my brother walked in the door. He had been in Baja for 2 months, randomly came back that friday. So I got a ride instead. We waited around outside for Eliza and Amy, et al., and finally went in when White Hinterland started. The crowd was mostly skinny jeans hipsters, and all the guys had beards. I had just taken the hedge clippers to my winter beard, and felt really naked :) Because we went in late it was standing room only, and we were in the entryway, which happened to be about 5' from the band. It was sweet. White Hinterland is a band, I believe, but she was touring alone due to logistics. Muddy Waters is a small room, but she kinda got swallowed up. Plus the audience was wrong for her music. I liked her voice, but she was kinda overwhelmed. 

Eliza and Amy showed up towards the end of her set. But the place was full, so the door dude wouldn't let them in. It was hilarious. Eliza bitched me out all day, and then she showed up too late to get in! My brother smokes like a chimney, so he went outside and talked with them, and at some point Eliza weaseled her way in. Every couple of minutes Amy poked her head in, she was comparing my face with my brother's. We don't look alike at all. It was funny. Phosphorescent kicked ass. A great bar band rocking out 5' away from me. I was happy. Their lead singer has great stage presence, and he had us eating out of his hands. Bon Iver on the other hand were terrible. My brother had the explanation: one of the girls he talked to outside had smoked them out well before they played, and they were still stoned out of their gourds when they played. I'm serious, they were terrible. They started sobering up for Creature Fear/Team, the last song. And it was epic. The song features the drummer just going off on the kick drum, and the vibration was resounding throughout the tiny room, and pounding into my chest. Creature Fear made up for the rest of their show for sure. As we were going back to the car Justin Vernon/Bon Iver passed us, running, looking for a dark corner to pee in. Luckily Muddy Waters is in the Funk Zone, so running crazy/drunk/stoned people don't look too out of the ordinary. A good night.