Saturday 4/15/06

1) Guster last night. A decent show. That's it, decent. Nothing spectacular, which I didn't expect. Actually, I didn't know what to expect. Now, Guster has been consistently one of the bands that is always playing on my iPod, or in my cd player. I haven't seen them in 4 years (I'm ashamed, I know), and much has changed. Lots of new songs, a new member, etc. Before walking in, I ran into my friend Eric, who I had meant to call, but forgot to. Good times.

For starters, the room. Now, I've seen Guster in a theatre and college gymnasium. But last night they played in a ballroom at a hotel. Very strange. They acoustics were better than I expected, but mediocre at best. I was told to forfeit my bottle of water at the door, to which I replied, "Do you think I have vodka in here?" They said there would be water inside the venue. Which there was.

Luke Temple comes on, and no one gave a shit about this guy. The sound was not good, and everyone talked during his entire set. Ryan even made a comment during Guster's set about how rude everyone was. I thought Luke Temple was ok. But like I said, everyone was talking, yelling for Guster, and the sound was awful.

Guster comes on. They open with Demons. Ok. They play some more of their pop songs. Their new songs are really good. Something nice about Guster is even though their albums tend to be spaced apart, a listener can definitely hear a progression in their music. They play the heck out of Airport song. Talk about Bisco Guster. It was probably the best song of the night. I didn't write down the setlist, and anyone who cares can go look at www.guster.com

Finally, and most importantly, this is called the Campus Consciousness Tour. An absolutely brilliant move on Guster's part. Check out this link to learn more about it

www.reverbrock.org/campusconsciousness/

Basically there is a group of organizations that travel with the band to promote different causes. One of (if not the) biggest is the promotion of "Global Cooling". A really fantastic idea. I also got a book, Raising The Bar, by Gary Erickson, the founder of Clif Bar.

And on an aside, we got our new cd for the Gap in this week, and Guster was on it.

2) Tomorrow is my first day off in a while. It's also Easter. I know I have said it before, but holidays are different than they used to be.