Best In Show

Each and every year, I make an effort to see about as many shows as I can. Last year was no exception.

I attended four music festivals (SXSW, Sasquatch, Lollapalooza, and Austin City Limits) and various other shows in various other cities. By far, SXSW was the best of the festivals. But it isn't really fair to put that in the same category as the other festivals. I really enjoyed the music and scenery at Sasquatch. The Arcade Fire, Spoon, Black Angels, Neko Case, The Long Winters, Ghostland Observatory, and Interpol along with the beautiful landscape at the Gorge certainly made a trip to central Washington state worth the effort. I also enjoyed Austin City Limits despite The White Stripes backing out. Wilco, The Arcade Fire, and Decemberists took the festival to a new ground. I found it refreshing to discover such wonderfully talented acts during the day times as The Heartless Bastards, Broken West, Fionn Regan, and St. Vincent. But Lollapalooza was, as a whole, the best of the big music festivals of 2007. The first night, I really enjoyed dancing wildly to the music of Daft Punk. The second night, Interpol reminded me again why they are truly one of the best acts in music today. And the third night, hearing Pearl Jam brought me back to my adolescent days of listening to music. There were wonderful acts thought each of the days. I found myself rushing from stage to stage to catch my favorite acts.

But my second trip to SXSW was pretty much was it is always about: discovering new artists. I remember leaving having purchased no fewer than a dozen CDs of artists that I had learned about there. Menomena was probably the most notable as I caught them three times during the week. Others that picked up that week included The Postmarks, Black Angels, Dirty On Purpose, Shearwater, and Loney, Dear. I am attending once again this year and am excited about what is in store.

I started the year by seeing a Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) solo show at the Granada (Dallas, TX). In retrospect, this was probably the show I enjoyed most throughout the year. While in New York City, I caught such great acts as Jesse Sykes and the Sweethereafter, Sparklehorse, Ben Kweller, Shearwater, Loney, Dear, and Low were amongst the best I caught at Webster Hall and Bowery Ballroom. And a Central Park show by the Decemberists and Grizzly Bear was unbelievably great.

I drove to Austin, TX to catch Page France and Bishop Allen. I then caught them the next night in Denton, TX. There was that span during the last two weeks of April and first two weeks of May where it felt like I was at the Granada weekly. I caught Tapes N Tapes for the first time ever, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and the greatness of Blonde Redhead. It was also great to catch The Postmarks in another small venue and get to spend time talking to the band after the show. Modest Mouse with Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr was another outstanding show that I caught Nokia in Grand Prarie, TX. One of the best music nights of the year was going up to Hailey's in Denton to see The Wrens and getting to get up on stage with the band. I got to check out the new House of Blues in Dallas, TX twice seeing legendary bands Meat Puppets and Sonic Youth and then later The New Pornographers and Spoon. I capped off the year by catching the Polyphonic Spree Christmas Show at Lakewood Theatre in Dallas. It was outstanding to hear Tim and the rest of the band sing Christmas songs and get to sing along with them.

I was also so fortunate to catch the This American Life tour at the Lincoln Center in New York City to promote the TV show version of itself. I really enjoyed being in the same room as many of the contributors to the show such as Jonathan Goldstein and Sarah Vowell. But seeing show host Ira Glass was the real treat as I have always admired his vision for the show. Also, Mates of State were the music guest and they were great as always.

So 2007 was a great year for live music. I'll be writing about some of my favorite CD releases of the year next week. Stay tuned.