by Maggie
Winter sucks, especially in Boston. Last year going on the BNL cruise drastically improved the whole messy business that calls itself 'February,' and Simon and I were both pretty desperate to get a taste of some sunshine again this year. The question of where to go quickly resolved itself when the latest set of Sloan tour dates hit the internet. Should I go see my 7th Sloan show in Hollywood, California the day after my 25th birthday? Yes, please!
The show was on a Sunday, so we flew out in the middle of the previous week to give ourselves ample time for fun, sightseeing, and Simon's quest to find the perfect taco. This is a music blog, not facebook, so I'll spare you the myriad vacation pictures. LA is fabulous, and I spent the whole time wishing I lived there (yes, traffic and all). Being surrounded by palm trees and greenery in the middle of winter was amazing. We saw 2 shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, both of which featured one of my absolute favorite comedians, Mr. Paul F Tompkins. The second UCB show featured a bit (a lot) of my trademark awkwardness when I unexpectedly ran into Chris Murphy in the waiting list line. I'm not going to go into the gory details, let's just say that I'm a spaz and leave it that.
I also visited the best record store I have ever been to in my life. Amoeba Music in LA trumps every record store I've been to in NYC, Montreal, Boston, and everywhere in between. I made two trips there in two days, spending a total of around 5 hours and a lot of dollars in that place. If the trip had been longer, I probably would have doubled that. I ran into Chris again on the way to my second visit, which was somewhat less awkward, but still surprising. Chris, if by random chance you read this: I'm not a crazy person, I swear. I just like comedy and records and happen to be extremely awkward. Thanks for being so good-natured about it. Anyway, we agreed that Amoeba is indeed awesome and I told him that I'd be dragging Simon with me to the show that night.
Amoeba passing a very important test: Do they have any Sloan vinyls?
The show itself was, as always, fantastic. The openers were The World Record and Taylor Locke & The Roughs. The World Record in particular was really good. Sloan took the stage somewhere between 10:00 and 10:30, opening their set with 'Take It Upon Yourself' from their Hit & Run EP. The set was largely the same as the three Hit & Run shows I saw on the east coast back in December, only this time I knew the words to the new songs much better. They also, seemingly randomly, threw in Ready For You near the end of the set, which was unexpected and wonderful. The absense of Action Pact songs was one of my only issues with the setlist back in December, and Ready For You is always fun.
The encore was crazy awesome - five songs, special guests, and a really great time. 'So Beyond Me' and 'Stand By Me, Yeah' in particular were awesome treats, as I had never seen them play either of those songs live before and both are songs I love. There's never a bad time to hear 'Coax Me' or 'Good In Everyone' either, so that was also fantasticular. I'll post the complete setlist a the bottom of this entry, after the pictures.
Even Simon, who is emphatically not a fan of concerts he has to stand for (or, in general, music that's not the Great Big Sea or Ben Folds if we're being honest), had to admit that it was a fantastic show. I think he was even a little bit starstruck when Chris introduced himself and told him that he'd thought about doing a bit regarding the fact that I'd dragged him to the show. He'll deny it up and down if you ask him though, so who knows. I also got to add to my growing collection of Sloan t-shirts when I stopped by the table of merch guy extraordinnaire Jay Coyle who hooked me up with all kinds of awesome swag like buttons and stickers.
I also finally managed to get a setlist signed by all 4 Sloans (I was going to get Gregory to sign it as well, but he was talking to people and Simon wanted to leave and also my legs were ready to collapse from exhaustion - one day!). For a completist like myself, that's a pretty sweet victory. Enough babble though. Less talk, more rock:
--taken from: Snowsuit Sounds (see more pictures here)
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