November 2, 2009

Built to Spill Jam Lee’s Palace

See what I did there? There was a big crowd out to see Built to Spill at Lee’s Palace on October 7 hence they jammed Lee’s Palace and Built to Spill love to jam and they certainly did a lot of jamming at their show. Ha ha ha. Corny.

This was my first time seeing Built to Spill. I managed to completely miss them during the 90’s and only really knew You In Reverse going into the show. This is one of those bands that I guessed I would truly appreciate once I’d seen them live. This guess turned out to be true and I’m glad I dragged myself out on a Wednesday night to see these guys perform.

Here's the band's video for "Conventional Wisdom". It's from You In Reverse and has one wicked guitar hook. Love it.




Disco Doom
opened the show. While my friends and I missed most of their set, their last two songs sounded good. I’ll be seeking out more of their stuff in future. Check out their myspace for some songs.

When Built to Spill took the stage, my friends and I thought that a final sound check was being performed. The singer/guitarist and drummer took to the stage first and over the next number of minutes, a magnificent jam ensued, with band members joining the beautiful noise.

The guys in Built to Spill take a different approach to stage presence than many bands. They take a few minutes between each song to tune and converse amongst themselves. At one point, a guitarist approached the mic and said, "Hey". Other than an occasional "thank you" that was about it for stage patter. Until the singer invited everyone to join him at a DJ gig at Sneaky Dee’s after the Built to Spill show. Being a work night, I didn’t take him up on his offer, but would be interested to hear what his DJ gig was like.

Frank over at Chromewaves has his take and some great pictures of this gig.