Modest Mouse, Califone, Duster & the Shins

The Shins from Albuquerque, New Mexico, opened with a brief poppy set. I don't really know anything about Albuquerque, but I definitely never expected anything from New Mexico to sound like that. Their bouncy, all-over-the-place keyboard / organ sounds / noises, fast tempo and soft, high-pitch vocals gave them kind of a low-fi Britpop sound. They definitely set the stage for a night of really good music, and left everyone happy and ready for more.

Next up was Duster. They played drifting, melodic, mostly instrumental songs. They played well, and the emotion they put into the songs came across very clearly. Maybe I watched too much TV when I was a kid, but personally, I just get bored watching a band play long songs with only scant vocals.

After Califone's first song someone yelled, "That was awesome!" The singer responded with "Did you say awesome? People don't say that were we are from. We would have said that was ‘neat.’" I'm not really sure what to say about Califone aside from: ‘They were neat.‘ There was a keyboard that popped up in the mix every once in a while, some slide guitar, and a lot of ‘twang’' (The guitarist was very fond of echo effects.) One song, later explained as their "hippie jam" by the band’s frontman, featured nearly five minutes of echo effect-drenched eerie guitar sounds. The lyrics sounded distinctive, like they would be really interesting if you could understand what they were. During one song the singer shouted into a small plastic megaphone thing that looked like something you would get out of happy meal. Since this is all very inconclusive, I'll just end it by saying that it is was, indeed, ‘neat.’

For some reason it took an inordinate amount of time for the featured band to come out on stage, creating quite a bit of anticipation and unrest. I don't think I've ever seen so much yelling, chanting and people trying to push their way to the front in such a small venue. The wait was made all worth it, however, when Modest Mouse opened with my favorite of their songs, "Trailer Trash." I was a little surprised that most of their set consisted of songs from previous albums instead of their latest release, The Moon & Antarctic. During louder songs like "Doin’ the Cockroach" and "Truckers Atlas," the floor exploded into a frenzy of jumping, dancing, and shoving... and you thought indie kids couldn't rock.

One of the most notable aspects of Modest Mouse's music is Isaac Brock's vocals. They’re lyrically both simple and intelligently emotional (e.g., "and I guess that I miss you, and I'm sorry if I dissed you"). The cadence of the vocals also provides structure to songs, an aspect similar to the vocal styles of Bob Nastanovich from Pavement. The importance of the vocals is even more apparent in a live setting because Isaac uses the vocals to steer the songs not only in tone, but also as rhythm. Monday was the second night of three sold out shows at The Great American Music Hall, and I have to wonder if this kind of schedule has had much of a toll on the band. During some songs, Isaac's vocals trailed off in the middle of choruses like he had just given up, but all in all, the entire band played an emotional and powerful set. They closed with an extended version of "Cowboy Dan," which ended with Isaac screaming into the pickups of his guitar over an overwhelming amount of feedback.

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