adrian is rad

Alright, I’m catching up here on the past few days. It’s been crazy. The NoisePop Festival is going on, so I’ve been to 3 concerts in the last 4 days.

I went with Margot from the station. She’s on right now (Saturday midnight-3am) if you want to listen. We caught the last couple minutes of the first opening band, who were nice enough to listen to but not good enough for me to look up the name of or link to.

Smoosh was up next. They are a 10 and a 12 year old girl playing drums and keyboard, respectively. You think, awww, that’s cute. It’ll be fun. Then you’re like, wait, these guys are actually sort of good. In the end it’s something between a total novelty and total rockin’ music. If you’re interested, give this KEXP live in-studio recording a listen. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I’m going to totally make my kids be in an indie rock band.

Aqueduct was just fun. It’s mainly one guy and his keyboards, writing songs about “Growing up on GnR” (Guns N Roses), which is available at the barsuk website I linked, and the like. His touring band has drums, guitar and bass as well. He had just found out (that day, I think) that they were going to be on Conan O’Brien two days later so he was really excited. I think in general he gets really into the show and is generally exuding happiness.

the Mates of State were great. Kori and Jason were in top form, returning to their former hometown. For the first time in all the times I’ve seen them, they brought along another keyboard in addition to the still-gorgeous Yamaha YC-45D. The second keyboard was a Yamaha electric piano, maybe a P80. I was scared at first that it was some cheesy synth that didn’t have the depth of the 45D, but it was just a piano and it allowed them to do “I Have Space,” a favorite of mine that I’ve never heard live. I was really happy with the selection of songs they did, including “A Duel Will Settle This,” the awesome one off their new EP “Along for the Ride,” their version of “These Days” and a bunch off of Team Boo. I like hearing “Hoarding for Home” and “Throw Down” live but you can’t get everything.

Overall, a really solid and enjoyable show throughout.

I like to make lists of all the shows I went to by bands that I’ve seen a ton, so here’s the one for the Mates of State:

• Oct. 7, 2001 at the Middle East with Beulah
• Feb. 23, 2002 at MassArt
• Oct. 5, 2002 at TT the Bear’s
• Feb. 1, 2002 at the Middle East with Rainer Maria
• Oct. 10, 2003 at the Bottom of the Hill
• Feb. 6, 2004 at the Los Gatos Outhouse (the teen center out back of the Los Gatos High School Football Field)
• Feb. 23, 2005 at Slim’s with Aqueduct and Smoosh