Blog of Horses

Band of Horses show, Terminal 5, Manhattan's west side:

There were two opening acts. The first was a one man act (who's name I've forgotten and can't seem to locate - I'm nursing a pretty nasty hangover right now). There's just not enough going on in one-man acts to properly whet my musical appetite. Plus one-man acts seem suspicious. Is the man so intolerable that no one will be in his band? Does he have really bad BO? These questions distract from the music (plus he just wasn't very good).

The second act was a band called the Drones who were programmed to play very, very bad music. Every song they played had a bridge where they broke down to one (or no) instruments before building it back up. This technique is great in small doses (Radiohead's Let Down being the best example) but when done over and over it becomes a crutch.

On a non-music level this band also annoyed to the point of repulsion. The lead singer convulsed rather than danced, the bassist stood with her back to the crowd for most of the time and the lead guitarist looked like he was in a Dolce and Gabana ad. I do not like the Drones.

Then Band of Horses came out and hit like a six footer. These guys really love playing music together and it was very evident. Ben Bridwell, BoH's lead singer, said at one point that the show was the largest the band had ever done. This was not evident. They play a type of music that is well suited for large concert halls, anthemic songs like Funeral and Is There a Ghost seem like they were made with large venues in mind. And BoH performed them with an excitement at the big venue realization. If you haven't checked out BoH do so, otherwise we'll fistfight again.

Two strange occurrences:

Today I walked past a group of construction workers on Wall Street who were listening to NPR.

Yesterday there was a headline on espn.com that said "Jim Kelly breaks down Tom Brady's keys to success" - this is like Custer breaking down Patton's WWII plans - I'll find my analysis elsewhere, thanks.

Links:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/monkeys-are-machiavellian-too/
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/12/071112fa_fact_gladwell
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2007/11/12/071112ta_talk_surowiecki
I'm a Giant's fan so I particularly enjoyed this article but it's an excellent piece of sports writing.
Submitted by McNuts: One of the funniest opening lines to a "news" story in long while.
http://sawse.com/2007/11/02/25-photographs-taken-at-the-exact-right-time/
Awesome