2 for 2 in 2

Sadly, I'm too old for concerts on consecutive nights. At least I thought I was when I realized last Wednesday that Grizzly Bear was playing at the Orpheum on Thursday night, having
long ago committed to a Built to Spill show on Friday night. Just the same, the memory of watching Grizzly Bear's Cemetery Gates on Wednesday night fresh in my mind, the notion of missing this opportunity was too much to BEAR.

Going back about a year, I happened upon their video for "The Knife". Under the influence of controlled substances, my mind was sufficiently blown. I couldn't get my hands on Yellow House, the band's second studio album, fast enough. For a considerable time thereafter I struggled to put my finger on the reason or reasons I found Grizzly Bear so decidedly forgettable. So forget about them I did, until the release of their most recent effort, Veckatimest. When a friend brought the video for "Two Weeks" to my attention I was reeled back in, temporarily. Eventually, similarly to the album that preceded it, I had listened to Veckatimest over and over again without being blown away; never humming along to anything besides "Two Weeks". And yet I was confused by this, like I was somehow missing something.

The fog began to clear last Wednesday night while watching a live performance on my lap top: I actually have a beef with their production. The key to Grizzly Bear can be found in subtlety, and their production doesn't account for this. With the volume at reasonable levels I can't tell anything interesting is going on with their music. Or rather, I can tell, I just can't hear it. Turn the knob clockwise and suddenly my eardrums are bleeding. Cemetery Gates (which you can watch by clicking on its first mention above) solved this problem for me. Cemetery Gates solved it so well, in fact, that I ended up going to the concert by myself, save for three nips of Jameson. Easily the least hip person in attendance, I gleefully took my seat in the eleventh row, dead center, like the aging dork that I've become. Over the course of the next few hours, however, I came to realize I had also been hung up all this time on time signature changes that didn't jibe with my expectations. The often gentle instrumentation and pitch perfect singing of Grizzly Bear bestows a false anticipation of a pop sensibility that isn't there. These guys aren't for the meek, despite what their singing voices would have you believe.


Juxtaposed, I met Steve Tallent at my apartment at 7:00pm the following night for beers and Yankees. Some several hundred beers and a Yankee walk-off win later found four of us walking downstairs at the Middle East just before Built to Spill took their seminal brand of guitar centric indie rock to the stage. Not long after having heard Built to Spill for the first time, it became very apparent to me that I needed to see these guys live for the full experience. Well, no surprises. Dough Martsch (beard and hat) and Co. sound of Dinosaur Jr., Modest Mouse, and maybe a little Pavement. Or perhaps more accurately, Modest Mouse, Pavement, and Dinosaur Jr. sound a bit like Built to Spill. Emerging from the fertile (?) Boise, Idaho underground in 1993, I can't help but admire the way Built to Spill has made a living putting on shows like last Friday's; a very comfortable evening of writhing air guitar and sing along in the company of others who seemed to be enjoying the same.