Present Joys
“We thank the Lord of heaven and earth
who hath preserved us from our birth
for present joys, for blessings past,
and for the hope of heaven at last.”

Tag live music

34 posts between February 2011 and April 2017

Franklin Bruno at Used Kids (13 nov 2012)

On November 13, I saw Franklin Bruno play a free in-store show at Used Kids Records on campus. He played a bunch of songs from the new Human Hearts album as well as some old Franklin Bruno solo stuff. And he also played “Some Other Way” from Undercard. I got my Kickstarter’d letterpress-printed limited-edition double-10-inch LP, which is beautiful, and the Human Hearts Art Books 7-inch, and a little freebie 3-inch mini-cd. AND Mr. Bruno was very friendly and even recognized me from my twitter account, which is crazy. I still can’t believe how kind and down-to-earth Franklin Bruno, a living legend, is in real life. How about THAT, tumblr? ASTONISHINGLY DELIGHTFUL STUFF.

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Mountain Goats at the Vic Theatre (Chicago, IL, 27 october 2012)

2012 has been a great year for live music. Here is further evidence: October 27, I drove to Chicago with friends Ian and Andrew to see the Mountain Goats. We slept in sleeping bags on Olivia’s apartment floor, got up early and went to Covenant PCA the next morning (which was a beautiful experience in its own right), and drove all the way home! A terrific jaunt. I could go on forever about tMG. They were amazing. tMG forums friend Thom recorded the show, so I’ve got a little memento. It was my first time in Chicago, and though I didn’t see a whole lot of the city, I enjoyed it a lot. The Vic Theatre was a pretty cool venue and I ended up quite close to the stage, which was great. And there’s really no topping a Mountain Goats show. Personal highlights included: “Wild Sage”, the full-band “Mess Inside” and “First Few Desperate Hours”, and (of course) “Tetrapod”. SO WORTH IT.

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Last sunday (22 apr 2012), Ian and I went to see Lambchop play at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland. We got to the venue with some time to kill before the show, so we went to check out the record/vintage clothing store in the basement of the place. There, we ran into Kurt Wagner himself, who was also shopping for used records. We were able to talk to him and tell him how excited we were to see him, and he was really kind and friendly and down-to-earth.

The setlist included nearly all the songs from Mr. M and every one of them sounded amazing. Overall, this was one of the quietest concerts I’ve ever experienced. We were standing at the very front of the stage and I could hear acoustic sound coming from the instruments themselves, which was a really unusual experience. All the musicians were amazing, especially the drummer. And they played “Soaky in the Pooper” as an encore! Ian and I had parked around the back of the building, and as we were leaving after the show, Kurt had just come outside to light a cigarette. He recognized us from earlier and thanked us for coming. It was all a really very nice experience.

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