All's Swell Up in the Bedroom After the War

Welcome to my new blogger home.

I still have the Feist and Spoon show tonight, but I couldn't wait to talk about Stars and Swell Season. I'm also going to start calling Feist "Seist." Mostly because I like alliteration.

Stars = brilliance. They came out strong with "Take Me to the Riot." Lead singer Torquil Campbell had us up on our feet, and we stayed that way for the duration of the show. Which, by the way, was held at the Orpheum Theatre downtown.

I'm a big fan of the plan of refurbishing all of downtown LA's historical theaters. They're beautiful gems of cinematic history and deserve more than tagged walls and dark marquees.

Ok, back to Stars. The whole set was amazing. They played my album faves "Elevator Love Letter" and "Favourite Book," and covered The Smiths' "This Charming Man." The culmination of the night for me, however, was the performance of their latest album's title track "Up in the Bedroom After the War." I felt it. I don't care how cheesy that sounds. My heart and throat tightened, and I was expecting to feel the warmth of tears on my cheeks at any moment.

Dear Stars, Thanks for the Veterans' Day reminder.

Sunday meant Swell Season at 4th and B in San Diego. Rain couldn't dampen our enthusiasm for this show. Neither could Martha Wainright's less-than-stellar performance. She ended on a good note, tho. As for Glen and Marketa, (the love story that is Swell Season) I don't even know where to begin.

We've been to a lot of shows this year. A LOT. And this was perhaps the best. The night was truly magical. The venue was great. The audience was perfect. And Glen and Marketa were spot on. They played for 2 hours straight. 2 encores. Took questions from the audience. Sang their little hearts out. Marketa played piano like a prodigy with an energy very contradicting to her shy demeanor. Glen embraced her with a look of love that I felt the heat from 11 rows back. His appreciation for the crowd was also very evident. (His face at one point during one of the standing ovations was very reminiscent of the Dixie Chicks after "Not Ready to Make Nice." It's great to be a fan in those situations.) We were ALL a part of this great night. Songs that weren't necessarily my favorite on the album came alive on stage in a way that made me love them. Even tho I knew we had a 2 hour drive home, I didn't want the show to end.

And tonight we have Spoon and F(S)eist. I've seen and loved Spoon live already, so I'm fairly confident this will be another one for the memory books.

Speaking of things with bindings and pages of words, Ben just gave me a copy of the book "The Diving Bell and The Butterfly." Between this and Diablo's stripper memoirs I've got some exciting reading ahead. Good thing, I wouldn't want to follow-up the fun that is "The Time-Traveler's Wife" with anything but greatness.

PS Not all blogs will be this long (but some might be) so please come back.