Tegan Quin @ Terminal 5, NYC, 10/6/08

Without further ado, here is the long-awaited second, and final, part of my interview with Tegan Quin:

Dese’Rae Stage, PopWreck(oning): Are there any other artistic mediums you use to express yourself?
Tegan Quin: Yeah, definitely. I mean, obviously, with the videos. We’re putting together a book. We’re definitely trying out different things and, you know, trying to be creative in different ways.
I think that, eventually, we’ll get to a point in our lives where we’ll wanna do something outside of that, like using the other side of our brains, as well. For now, we’re basically involved in every aspect of what we do, from the business side of things to the artistic side of things. We’re all over the map. I’m definitely not smoking pot in my bedroom writing music all day long expecting someone to get me out there. We’re working really hard to make this happen.
PW: That’s awesome. It’s totally what you need to do. It’s amazing to see the change. I’ve been listening to you guys since I was a kid—since my freshman year of college seven years ago.
TQ: It’s really important. I mean, just like everyone’s life, you don’t wanna get stuck. I think, oftentimes, you know, unlike our own lives, when we get into an artist, we want them to stay the same because we want them to remind us constantly of that place we were in when when we first attached to them. I think Sara and I have navigated that change in ourselves and our music with our audience pretty well.
There are obviously people that grow out of music and have grown out of us, but it seems, progressively, throughout the ten years that we’ve been making music professionally, we’ve continued to cultivate a really great relationship with our audience that, as we change, they change too. We grow with them and they’re able to accept our changes.
There are still enough key ingredients in our performance, in our ability to connect with our audience, that stay the same that, as our music grows and changes and the evolution of Tegan and Sara continues, we’re still recognizable to the audience we had ten years ago.

PW: Who have your musical influences been historically and who are they now? Have they changed much?
TQ: When we started making music, it was like the mid-nineties to late-nineties, so we were into that whole grunge movement and Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young and Bob Dylan and Ani DiFranco and Hayden. We were listening to a lot of that kind of music. As the years have gone by, I’ve gone further back into my past and music that I grew up with, like Cyndi Lauper and Sinead O’Connor and U2 and Dire Straits and Pink Floyd and all the stuff that I was listening to as a little kid. We were freakishly involved with music as kids, too. So, I think I went through that stage through the If It Was You/So Jealous era.
I think, nowadays, I’m influenced like everybody else. I’m obviously listening to a lot of indie rock and pop music and, you know, very into electronic music. When I was a teenager, we were really big into the electronic kind of bands, that kind of music scene and stuff. So, the last few years I’ve definitely gotten more interested in involving those elements in our music and listening to that kind of music. We’re contributing some songs to Tiesto’s new record and we’ve performed with him and I really think he’s great. You know, it’s an example of a type of music that isn’t necessarily obvious that we might listen to, but it’s definitely influential. The melodies and the harmonies and the structure of the songs and stuff—it’s all definitely very much something that we employ when we’re writing our own music.

PW: You have a lot of tattoos. I wanted know if you get the same question I do and how do you respond to it, and that question is: do you ever think about what you’ll look like when you’re 80?
TQ: [laughs] I figure that things are moving along so quickly and laser removal will advance so much that, if it’s really that terrible when I’m fifty, sixty, seventy or whatever, I’ll remove them. But I’ll tell you right now that the last thing I’m probably gonna be thinking about when I’m eighty is what my arms look like.
PW: Fuckin’ right. Thank you.
TQ: I’m not worried about it. Like I said, I figure by that point in time, things will have changed so much and advanced so much that it’ll probably be pretty easy to figure it out. I mean, there’s always sweaters.
PW: Yeah, I just think that’s gonna be the least of my worries.
TQ: Totally. It is absolutely gonna be the least of your worries. I mean, I would never tattoo my face, my hands, my feet—anything I couldn’t cover up.

PW: Before you were able to make ends meet by playing music—I do assume there was a time—what sort of jobs did you guys have?
TQ: When I was in high school, both my dad and step-dad owned home building companies, so I worked on job sites a lot. My last year of high school, I worked in a coffee shop. When I graduated, the first six months that I was out of high school, we were making music, and I worked at a coffee shop again. I got a different job at a different coffee shop, but that’s it; that’s my employment history.
Sara did mostly the same. She worked at a music store for awhile and she worked in a cafeteria at the Calgary Zoo. We both, by the time we were basically three or four months out of high school, were making music, so we didn’t have to get real jobs.

PW: I think successful artists are intense by definition. I wanted to know if you found that people in your life have been scared away or spooked by that intensity.
TQ: You know, I think as I’ve gotten older, I’m definitely more aware of the energy that I have. Like, my ability to walk into a room—and I’m a people pleaser, but I’m also extremely gregarious and loud and extroverted and I know that I oftentimes can monopolize and take a lot of space and I have an ability to get a lot of attention on me.
I mean, I know how to stand in front of 2,000 people and keep their attention on me, so it’s not hard to do in a party atmosphere. So, I’ve learned how to contain that and not be so much.
I’ve also learned to be a little more comfortable with the idea that, just ’cause I’m not talking and I’m not entertaining, it doesn’t mean that anyone’s judging me or thinking, “What’s wrong with Tegan? What’s happening? Why isn’t she talking?” But I’m used to that.
I’m used to being quiet and people being like, “What’s wrong?” And me being like, “No, nothing’s wrong, I’m just trying to let it happen.” I definitely feel like that can be uncomfortable and, as an artist, I’m quite aware. I mean, I remember this one time I asked this girl who I’d been chasing for quite awhile why it was so hard. What was the problem? Wasn’t I great? Wasn’t I perfect? She sent me my schedule from my tour page on my MySpace and I was just like, “Okay, I get it.”
It’s difficult and I think I make up for that by being so intense. I put a lot into the relationships I have when I’m at home and, you know, it’s a lot. I’m aware of how big I can be sometimes. I was hanging out with some girls the other night who I’d just met and we had this whole big meeting and we got up from the table and we were walking outside and this one girl was like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe how small you are!”
I was like, “Oh!”
She was like, “I mean, I would have sworn you were the same size as me at the table.” I think that’s just an energy thing. So, I’m definitely cautious and careful about it, but I like my intensity. People who have no energy—I couldn’t be bothered to deal with them.
PW: Totally. Cool. I had to ask that question because people do that to me and I’m like, “Ah! I’m sorry I’m intense!”
TQ: No. Fuck it. Don’t be apologetic. It’s fine.

PW: Holla! Okay, last one. I feel like a lot of people who are in the public eye have trouble carrying on a normal life and I wanted to know how you make new friends or meet a new romantic interest when everyone knows who you are. Do you have to keep your guard up?
TQ: Yeah, of course. It’s not easy. I don’t mean that in a sob story way, kind of like, “Oh, it’s so hard,” but it is. You know, I meet people and I’ve been out of a serious relationship for two and a half years and dating the whole time, and it’s hard. You meet people and they do know who you are and you have to kinda just accept that, or you meet people and they’ve slept with half the people you know and you’re like, “Oh God, really?”
You’re not eighteen anymore, you’re not meeting somebody who’s never been with a girl, you’re not meeting someone who’s just out of high school and doesn’t know who you are. It’s really hard. With my age group and the people I’m interested in and the scene I hang out in, I mean, oftentimes I do feel a bit like a zebra being pranced around in a dance club. I don’t feel like people are able to come up and talk to me and be themselves with me because they either think that I’m going to be a certain way or they’re terrified of me and so they’re nervous and creepy and weird and then I’m like, “Ugh, get away from me.”
When it comes to making friends, it’s a little bit easier because I’m pretty good at being straightforward and being like, “Okay, you met me. Now it’s time to stop talking about me. Let’s talk about life.” So it’s a little bit easier, but yeah, I’ve been really lucky and blessed to have a lot of really great friends since high school. I meet a lot of really great people through other people I know, so it’s pretty great.
I think Sara and I—the one thing that has stayed consistent over the last ten years is that we’re still the same people we were then. We’re very charismatic and we’re very humble, good friends and we try to take as much time as we can for our friends and family. I think it’s pretty easy to attract good people when you’re putting that energy out there.

Photos by Dese’Rae Stage. More at flickr.

Technical Editor Nick caught up with Pierre on the phone to discuss his new album, The Way That it Was. They talked about the album, songwriting, influences, and Pierre’s support for Barack Obama.

Nick, PopWreckoning: How are you doing?
Pierre de Reeder: Doing good, I’m good. How are you?
PW: Great, it’s starting to be fall here in Kansas City so it’s a good time here.
PdR: Oh yeah, what’s the weather like?
PW: It’s cloudy today and maybe about 70, but the leaves are starting to fall and change colors and there’s a lot of energy this time of year.
PdR: Great, great.
PW: So, do you live in Southern California?
PdR: Yeah, I live in LA.
PW: In LA, so you get to travel a lot so do you enjoy the seasons or do you enjoy keeping it the same all year?
PdR: Well yeah, I like the seasons. We do get some semblance of the seasons here. It’s not like anywhere else but, it gets cold and it gets fuggin’ hot. But, yeah we don’t get any good snow but it’s awesome when we get rain which is so infrequent.
PW: But, you get the best of both worlds because you’re only a couple hours from good snow.
PdR: True, true. I’ve been guilty of skiing during the day and going to the beach in the evening.
PW: Yeah that’s not fair. We can do neither.

PW: I’m really interested in knowing what your song writing process is. Do you start with lyrics or melody or chords or does it just vary with the song?
PdR: It’s very song dependent. It does vary, but I don’t know if its any one strategy I have. The songs come to me in different ways. Sometimes they come as just a melody popping into my head and I’ll start there and I’ll write some music around it. But I think more often it will start either with me practicing on the guitar or piano and something musical first happens, and then a melody comes along. But sometimes it all comes at once, you know? I’ll just pick up a guitar and something pops out twenty minutes later. It just depends on the song, but that’s more rare. But yeah, it’s everything. It’s all of the above. There is no one formula for me.

PW: How many times do you come up with something great and then someone else tells you it’s something else you’ve already heard?
PdR: I think I’m more guilty of saying that to other people. It’s always described to me as my job in Rilo Kiley to point out how similar some riff or something was from some other song. I try to avoid that. I’m pretty keenly aware of that. Though I’m guilty of it, I’m sure. There’s nothing new under the sun, as they say. So, yeah. I don’t know. It doesn’t really happen to me that often though maybe I’m littered with it. I don’t know.

PW: This album, your first solo release, is very polished and mature and has some great song writing in there without being overly layered and overly complex. Who has been your greatest song writing mentor?
PdR: Certainly some of the greats for me are the some of the greats for so many people. Like the Beatles, Neil Young and definitely my peers are mentors to me, just the people I’m surrounded with. Great musicians and song writers I’m associated with. So yeah, it’s a lot of outward kind of associated things and the things that I love through out my life and people I’m surrounded with, I guess.
That wasn’t a really specific answer, very broad I know but I think it’s true because everything I think we all are influenced by all of those things. I mean there is no way to pick. I guess you could say you’re totally into one band and you love the sound and you really try to emulate them, but we’re so influenced by so many things over such a long time span, you know, that it all kind of filters into the music you make.

PW: If those are your kind of long term influences, who do you like right now? Who are you listening to now that you think is great?
PdR: Right now, I’m actually back on a lot of the classics. I’ve been spinning a lot of vinyl around the house. I found this old Wings record. There’s certainly some contemporary things that are awesome like Benji Hughes who just went out with us- he’s awesome.
I get flustered being on point with these questions, about what record I’m buying or what I’m listening to. But again, peers. I’m a sucker for my friends’ bands. I’m a sucker for the stuff my friend Michael Runion does, or Whisper Town, or Jonathan Rice. Nik Freitas, another rad dude who we were touring with and he has a lot of records out.

PW: It’s nice to hear PopWreckoning favorite Morgan Nagler (of Whispertown2000) on your album as well.
PdR: Yeah, I got her and some friends together and sang up a chorus or two.
PW: How does that work, you just put out a phone call and tell a bunch of people to show up and they lay down some tracks?
PdR: I guess so, that just had happened to be one day where I had this vision for a whole bunch of people singing and different parts of a few different songs and so I asked my good friends and people that happened to be around.
Jake Bellows [of Neva Dinova] was in town so it was like, “That’s awesome!” So just some friends and I was like “Hey! What about Saturday?” and he was like “Yeah, alright!” So everyone came by. Not that I know it was a Saturday.

PW: It looks like you were able to bring your daughter into that process. Was that the first time she’s taken part in your music officially?
PdR: Yeah, yeah.
PW: Did she enjoy that process?
PdR: (laughing) Yeah, she really does.
PW: Are you trying to get her down the road? I have two girls so I have one about the same age as your daughter and I find it fun to get her involved. We did a little Garage Band project a few months ago. Do you try to encourage that with your daughter?
PdR: I definitely encourage it. She’s self-encouraged, though. She just loves “it,” whatever “it” is. She’s just like a little performer, you know?
PW: Yeah, I have one of those too.
PdR: She just loves doing that kind of stuff. I definitely don’t want to be a stage mom or dad pushing her to do anything but she does finds it on her own and things come up like this for her, like people ask her to be in a video or some song. She did a record for a kid’s band and all of this stuff just keeps coming to her and she just loves it.
PW: Well that’s great, my daughter, we did a Garage Band project and ended up shooting a video and she realized quickly that it’s not as fun as it all looks. There’s a lot of work involved.
PdR: A lot of it is just waiting, just waiting around.

PW: So I’ve read an essay you wrote about Obama and I see you’re a big Obama supporter. What are you doing over the next month to help out?
PdR: Well, coincidentally enough I get to participate in this really awesome commercial tomorrow that Shepard Fairy, the guy who did the Obama posters and also did obey Jock the Giant, is doing. It’s an official Obama campaign commercial that’s shooting tomorrow and I get to go in and do a sixty second speech on what I think and why, and blah blah blah. Tons of people are going to show up and do this tomorrow and just getting to be a part of that and who knows if a snippet of me will be in there or not, but just being able to get on the pulpit a little bit tomorrow for that experience is exciting.
PW: It seems like these days that artists are completely past the worry that they are going to offend any of the fans and they are wearing everything pretty blatantly on their sleeves.
PdR: Yeah, thankfully.
PW: I think maybe the Dixie Chicks led the way and took a little heat on it with their crowd but it seems like now it’s pretty acceptable. We were at ACL last week and it seemed pretty much every show made a mention of change and Obama.
PdR: The more the better, you know? It’s a crazy time everyone’s got to wear it on their sleeve. It’s the most patriotic thing they can do. It’s cliché to say but it is.

PW: Any back up plans if it doesn’t go our way?
PdR: I truly was one of those people when Bush got elected the very first time – before he got elected I didn’t know what I’d do. I thought there was something crazy about this dude and I didn’t know what was going to happen to us if he got elected. I heard some people like Alec Baldwin were going to leave the country, and I was the same way and this was all before Bush’s first term, so I had those similar pangs. But I’m not going to leave the country, I’m not going to do anything. What am I going to do? Just hang in there like everyone else and hope for the best.

PW: Yeah, I know. I read that you designed the Rilo Kiley t-shirt for the Yellow Bird Project. Is that true?
PdR: Yeah.
PW: So you paint or do other visual arts as well?
PdR: Yeah, I paint to some extent. A kind of amateur, for-love-of-painting kind of way. I have always dabbled in the arts. But, yeah I do a lot of design.
I have done most of the Rilo Kiley album covers, and I painted my record cover and all of the artwork, and Jenny Lewis’ record cover and yeah I do that. I do everyone’s record covers and photo retouching and all of that kind of junk. And artwork and advertising so yeah, I definitely do that.
It’s kind of been a sideline of mine forever. I used to teach graphic design. I just dabble in painting. I don’t really do it, but I did get to do it on my record cover which was fun.
PW: My wife has that Yellow Bird shirt, by the way, and just loves it. It’s a beautiful shirt.
PdR: It was great doing the Yellow Bird Project.
PW: And the Elliot Smith Memorial Fund is another cool thing to see on the back of that shirt.
PdR: Yeah, for sure.

PW: Let’s go to the new album. What is your favorite track now that you have had some time to let it sit and roll around, what do you go back to as your favorite?
PdR: I don’t know, that’s such a hard thing to answer. I’m so close and personal to each one of them. Its really hard to pick a favorite. There are different ones that are with me for different reasons.
There’s a slower one on the record called “A Long Conversation”. I don’t know why, it just has a mood about it that I really enjoy playing live and how it came across on the record. “The Way That It Was”, the title track, is another favorite. They are all obviously incredibly personal and I have a different relationship with each one, it’s like different children. I don’t which one I love best.

PW: How many songs do you write that don’t make an album? Are you prolific and just take the best ones, or do you take one and work on it for a long time?
PdR: I mean it’s kind of a mixed bag there, too. There are certainly a number of songs that didn’t make it on this record so there are a lot of finished or unfinished or whatever songs floating around out there. So I don’t know how prolific I am. More than some, much less than others.
I definitely can whittle away at a song for a long time or I could finish it quickly. I guess I’m more of a whittler with songs, especially with recording so much of this record myself. It lent itself to whittling where I’d have to do the drums and the bass and the guitar, and then experiment, and do whatever. It’s a long whittling process, and through that sometimes a song comes out much different than I started or sort of intended.

PW: I really like “Not How I Believe” at the end of the album and I really like the message of it: have a little bit of modesty and honesty. Does that hurt in trying to do a lot of self promotion around your album? Is it difficult for you to go out and sell this thing?
PdR: It is. I’m terrible about wanting to do that stuff but I am pragmatic about having to do it. I started a record company to release this record and so at least I can hide behind that and kind of use any promotion through the record company doing it (even though it’s me). I have to do tons of other stuff: be kind of business savvy, and getting all the ducks in a row and that kind of stuff, but yeah I try to remain modest with it all, too. It’s a hard thing to do, but, yeah those are tenets of me in general, like being honest and modest, and humble and sincere and confident, all at the same time.
PW: I think it definitely comes through in your work and I see a lot of, even with these troubled times, some optimism in here, quite a bit of it actually.
PdR: Yeah, I am optimistic. I always have been optimistic. Realistic, but optimistic.
PW: Yeah I think that’s great, it does come through. I really enjoyed the album.
PdR: Thanks.

PW: It’s definitely grown on me. I have listened to it quite a bit in the last few weeks. Is there anyone you really want to collaborate with or maybe even, since you have a label now, get a project going with someone else in the future?
PdR: I guess there would be so many people I would love to, I don’t know. Again I mean I love working with all of my friends and I love doing that and I would love to continue to do that with just about every one but I’ve encountered musically and I would love to have them all play with me in some sense on some recording or whatever.
From [Michael] Runion to Benji [Hughes], to Conor [Oberst], and everyone who is associated with everyone, I would love to play with them all. With everyone I have played music with and I’d love to have them involved with my stuff. And then it expands out to the greater big world of I don’t know. Yeah, I would love to play with anybody and everybody.
PW: Those tracks that have the chorus on them, it just seems like your having a lot of fun in there, and that does come through. I think that’s all I have for you.
PdR: Cool, that’s awesome.
PW: Thank you very much! It was great talking to you I wish you the best of luck.

Tour Dates:
Oct 24 – Rio Theatre / Santa Cruz, CA (w/ Jenny Lewis)
Oct 28 – Herbst Theatre / San Francisco, CA (w/ Jenny Lewis)
Oct 29 – Herbst Theatre / San Francisco, CA (w/ Jenny Lewis)
Oct 30 – Orpheum Theatre / Los Angeles, CA (w/ Jenny Lewis)
Nov 01 – UCSD Price Center Ballroom / San Diego, CA (w/ Jenny Lewis)

Pierre de Reeder: website | myspace

11:45-12:30 // Langhorne Slim // Dell Stage
As we shifted through the somewhat modest morning crowd, making our way towards the Dell Dome to get Jessica’s hair teased into the finest of “America’s Next Top Model” mode, we managed to catch a few songs from Kemado Records’ Langhorne Slim. Their mellow yet manic songs seemed to set the perfect soundtrack for what appeared to be the makings of a pretty calm start to a festival that would eventually peak into a frenzy at the hands of Beck. Yet, listening to these boys, better suited for a dive bar than a giant showcase, they seemed determined to hold their own regardless of the makeup of their surroundings. Scene be damned, Langhorne Slim gave the day their all, coloring me impressed. I fully expect myself to make an effort to seek out this band again.

Langhorne Slim, Photo: epochshot

12:30-1:30 // Old 97s // AT&T Stage
Since 1996, I have loved the Old 97s, yet have never been blessed with the chance to see them play. Needless to say, there was no way in hell I was missing there set at this year’s ACL. I must say I was rather pleased to experience how fluently their mix of alt-country twang and standard pop riffs carried over into their live act. Furthermore, watching Jess shake her ass in time to one of my favorite bands, having just discovered them, was one of my most coveted ACL experiences.

1:30-2:00 // Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed (interview) // Dell Dome
While waiting in line for the aforementioned teased out mess of a faux hawk Jess had to have, we got to overhear one of the many artist interviews that took place in the Dell Dome over the weekend. Jess was excited that we happened to be there for 50′s style rocker Eli “Paperboy” Reed, whom she had seen at Download: Philadelphia.

Eli "Paperboy" Reed

Following an extended stay in the Dell Dome, checking out some rad art by Mike Ming and making new friends (sup Andrea!), we headed back to the media area for a couple interviews. I must admit, I went into my interview with MGMT with a bit of apprehension. It has been stated pretty heavily and bluntly that these boys were moody, pretentious pricks who would have little to no issue with tearing you down if you rubbed them the wrong way. Turns out, however, those rumors could not have been more false. Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, simply sat and hung out with us, more or less, even opting to remain in conversation with us for nearly 20 minutes after the interview had ended. Sadly, the party had to be broken up in order for Jessica and I to hang with a different sent of boys, Electric Touch.

MGMT, Photo: Quiet Color

Local rockers Electric Touch were fabulous guys, who Jessica had seen play with The Airborne Toxic Event in Philadelphia not long before. She was excited to sit and chat while I wandered off to take full advantage at all the media tent had to offer. [Ed Note: Electric Touch are super sweet and fun guys.]

3:30-4:30 // Man Man // Dell Stage
Man Man easily had the set of the day, in my opinion. Honus Honus (nee Ryan Kattel) and company, decked out in white, shook their ass and won the hearts of all those in attendance. The crowd mirrored Honus on “Ballad of Butterbeans,” jiggling car keys and other noise makers in a manner that would make one think they were part of a Dr. Seuss book. Actually, Man Man’s set tends to remind me more of a trip to the circus than a day watching music. This is, however, not meant to take away from how musically talented and innovative this group is. It is nearly impossible to not get swept up into their infectious riffs, which hook you in, and keep you longing for more. Kudos to Man Man for being just catchy enough to become the only set on day two that we watched in it entirety.

Honus Honus of Man Man, Photo: Quiet Color

4:30-5:30 // Erykah Badu // AT&T Stage
On our way to catch dinner in the media area, Jess and I were lucky enough to catch a bit of the legendary Erykah Badu. I was really quite impressed by her abilities to belt out notes that I’m not positive most people could even reach. Her version of “Amazing Grace,” sung near the end of her set, was on of the most beautiful renditions I have ever heard in my life. It highlighted her abilities to speak to a crowd of people at Austin City Limits, who otherwise might never have had the desire to see her sing. I know I’m a convert.

Erykah Badu, Photo: Quiet Color

5:15-6:00 // Electric Touch // Austin Ventures
Known for their high energy act, Electric Touch did not disappoint. With guitars flying and bodies moving, these Austin boys burned their hometown to the ground, stealing the crowd from fan favorites, MGMT, who happened to be playing (loudly) directly to our left. And while, MGMT may be the critics pick, easily playing to 25,000 people, Electric Touch, with its crowd of 1,000 was easily your best buy.

5:30-6:30 // MGMT // AT&T Blue Room Stage
Due to their popularity, Jess and I were forced to watch MGMT from something like the 10,000th row away from the stage. So, while their sound seemed to be right on the money and the energy of the crowd appeared to be pushing toward a near frenzy, we hung around for “Time to Pretend,” before bailing to find a closer place to watch Conor [Oberst] (and fit in a tiny nap).

MGMT, Photo: Quiet Color

6:30-7:30 // Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band // AT&T Stage
While we had both already seen Bright Eyes, I had a feeling that Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band would be nothing like Oberst’s driving force of success. I was right. While I have always openly admitted that I find Conor to be a touch beyond emotional, bordering on manic and whining, I have also always credited him with being a genius. To me, the Mystic Valley Band not only confirms this, but solidifies it. With a bit of a Bob Dylan meets Ryan Adams sound to it, Oberst comes of a bit more aged and worn than in previous works. Furthermore, his live show remains tight and crammed with energy, making him a fairly difficult act to follow. Luckily for us, Beck was to follow him on the AT&T stage, and he’s not too shabby either.

8:30-10:00 // Beck // AT&T Stage
Opening with “Loser,” Beck straight up went for the kill from the very beginning. Follow that with “Devil’s Haircut” and “Timebomb,” and you’ve pretty much set the tone for a fairly kick ass set. Undoubtedly, the crowd, consisting of roughly 50,000 people agreed, as they gave their full attention to one slightly shy and awkward long-haired man. To my surprise, however, Beck was very crowd interactive, instead of offish and closed off, which I naturally assumed he would be.

Beck, Photo: Autumn DeWilde

However, torn between seeing a current legend in Beck, or a pair of established legends in Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, Jess and I took the high road, choosing to catch half of both.

8:15-9:30 //Robert Plant & Alison Krauss // AMD Stage
I can think of a lot of artists I would love to shove together on stage, just to see what the results would be. Yet, to be perfectly honest, I am not sure I would have ever thought to place Robert Plant, formerly of Led Zepplin, next to Alison Krauss, easily one of the biggest names in bluegrass. However, there is no questioning that this all-star combination just gels. Their blended vocals compliment one another like I have never experienced before. Their rather beautiful set felt to be a fairly flawless way to end and pretty well planned lineup. I couldn’t have asked for more.

The duo were a bit cheated by the overpowering volume of Beck’s set across the park, but it did little to detract from the lovely sounds Plant and Krauss produced. Clearly annoyed at the competition, but laughing it away, Plant referred to Beck and company as “The Village People.” Not cool — twas the sound guy’s fault. We peaced out of ACL dancing to Beck’s “Where It’s At” before happening upon a ridiculous disco dance party outside of a random juice bar on Barton Springs Road, not far from the park’s entrance. Preferring sleep to disco inferno, we continued on our way, stoked for the culmination of one of the greatest festivals of the summer.

Stay tuned for Day 3!

Austin City Limits: website | day 1

Dese’Rae Stage, PopWreck(oning): The “Call It Off” video just came out. I like that the newer videos seem conceptually really simple, but they use a lot of colors and patterns.
Tegan Quin: Yeah. Sara really likes to do complicated videos and you get treatments from people and they give you these huge concept videos. Our songs are so short, it’s tough to stuff that in. I feel like it’s a waste to spend $100,000 on a video. The director who did this video, Angela Kendall, she also did The Making of ‘The Con’ and put together the It’s Not Fun. Don’t Do It! DVD we put together a couple of years ago. She’s amazing and a really good friend of mine. The whole day she kept spazzing about the smallest things and I kept being like, “Nobody’s gonna see it, it’s only gonna get played on YouTube. No one’s even seen a video on television in ten years.” I kind of think that is really how we feel. We still feel like videos are art and we make videos because they’re part of our catalog; they’re part of something we see as another way to explain and project what we were thinking and feeling when we were making the record. But, I mean, when it comes down to it, how much do we need to spend on that? The first video we did for this record was like $75,000, which is nearly as much as we spent on the record. And it’s like, for what? Does it really sell records? I don’t think it does. I think it’s cool. I think maybe it helps to create an image for a band, but I’m not sure for a band like us, it helps our record. So I love the “Call It Off” video because it was simple and inexpensive and it looks great and we got to help out Angela Kendall, who’s an amazing director and does great videos.

Photos: Autumn de Wilde

PW: You guys got to work with one of my heroes, Autumn de Wilde [a photographer known for her work with Elliott Smith, Rilo Kiley, Beck, and the Raconteurs, among others]. Tell me about that.
TQ: Autumn’s amazing. It’s very rarely we work with female photographers. They just hardly ever shoot us, for whatever reason. It’s like, female producers and engineers, there’s just not a lot of them–or at least, up in that world. It was amazing. When we found out about Autumn, I mean, obviously I recognized a million of her photos, but we met her probably like six or seven years ago the first time and a million times since then. Chris Walla [guitar, Death Cab for Cutie] is also friends with her, and when we were in Portland making the record, we were talking about, “Oh, we gotta do the art work soon. We gotta do photos.” Chris was like, “You should use Autumn,” and we were like, “Yeah, fuck, we’ve never had an opportunity to use her.”
He was like, “Oh, yeah I’ll call her and get her to fly up here and we can shoot photos at my house.” I was like, “That’d be great,” so we called her up and a week later she showed up and shot the photos and was amazing. She’s so tall and we’re like midgets, so she basically sat on the floor and shot us all day, which was hilarious. She’s amazing, her daughter’s amazing. They’re really tall and talented. I can’t wait to work with her again. I love that she only shoots with film, which is obviously an expensive way to shoot in this day and age, but she’s so good it’s not like it’s a waste. And we got so many photos—we got 20 times the photos we usually get from a photo shoot, so it was incredible.

PW: I was on a bus yesterday, on the way to shoot Melissa Ferrick in Philadelphia. I finished up A Wolf at the Table and I was sitting there sobbing.
TQ: It’s an incredible book.
PW: I wanted to know if you were a fan of Augusten’s [Burroughs] prior to doing the first Spin Liner Notes event with him.
TQ: Yeah, absolutely. Well, the reason why I had agreed to write the song—I mean, I would have probably done it anyway. I mean, I’m a slut, I’ll do anything, but I was a huge fan and Sara was like, “You should take this one,” so I got the e-mail before Christmas asking if I was interested in writing a song for his book. I was like, “Absolutely.” It was also a selfish thing because I got to read the book three months before it came out. So, I read it a couple times and wrote the song and it was really difficult because I’ve never really written about anything but myself. We started e-mailing afterwards. He was really moved by the song. He’s fascinating. His books are identical to the way he is in person and e-mail. He’s not emulating anything other than himself, so it was incredible to finally meet him after six months of communicating via e-mail and text–to actually be able to sit there and have a conversation with him and then to share a stage with him for an hour and a half. He was so funny and it was really amazing, so yeah, I was a huge fan. I owned all of his books and I’ve read them a million times. I think he’s so funny and an incredible visual writer. It was great to meet him. Yay!
PW: He’s totally one of my favorites. Love him.
TQ: Me too.

PW: I know you had a side project. Are you still doing that?
TQ: I am, yeah. I started sending songs that I hadn’t used that weren’t really Tegan and Sara-like to this guy, Hunter Bergen, who plays bass in AFI a couple years ago. Since then, we’ve collaborated on probably another ten or fifteen songs and we’ve talked a lot over the past year about what to do with them. You know, should we put them out? Should we tour? Should we sell them to other people? Should we give them away? Should we put them on MySpace? What do we do with them? We’re still deciding. We had some preliminary talks with some bands. We’re thinking about being more like a writing team, but eventually all the songs will see the light of day. I’m not sure in what form or who will be singing them. They’ll definitely get out there. It’s nice to work out songs and do stuff with someone else. I’ve been making music with Sara for 14 years, so it’s nice to vent in another form and I’m also emotionally less attached to the songs. I feel like I’m learning a lot while writing with someone else because I’m able to take feedback and criticism in a way that I can’t with my own music.

PW: That totally makes sense. So, I read something about a new album next year?
TQ: Yeah. Two or three times during the demo-ing process, we make a CD with lyrics and send it out to this collective of people whose opinions we really appreciate. They give great feedback and we try to eliminate excess [tracks] that we don’t think are gonna make it to the next stage and we kind of move forward ten songs or whatever and start writing again. So, we just did that last night–made the list and burned the CDs and sent them out. We’re gonna tour and get some feedback and start writing again. My goal is to make a record next spring. We’ll have the summer to get the video made and the press done and the pictures taken and put a record out right away in September. We’ll start touring and not do the long lead-up. I don’t think that’s necessary for a band our size anymore, you know? We’re not Mariah Carey. We don’t need six months to lead up to a record and get singles out there and try and get a million downloads on iTunes. We just need to get new music out there and keep trying, so hopefully everyone will be hearing new Tegan and Sara by next summer.
PW: That is awesome and fast and I love it.
TQ: Yeah. I mean, I’m projecting, but once you get past September, it’s really hard to release a record, so we’re gonna try to do it really quick and I think that’ll be possible because after this US tour, we’re pretty much done.

PW: Speaking of, I noticed that the second New York show is the Amnesty International ‘Small Places Tour’.
TQ: Yeah.
PW: I have no idea what that is.
TQ: I don’t know what it is either, but— (laughs)
PW: Hey, at least you’re honest.
TQ: …but obviously you know what Amnesty International does and the Small Places Tour–I mean, I’m not exactly sure if there’s some specific thing about it. We just approved it a couple days ago. Basically, they just take a cut of the money and put it towards Amnesty International. They take artists from all over the place. It’s not like a tour with two bands going out and touring the US. They’re gonna get tons and tons and tons of artists all over the world in different venues to contribute a percentage of their merchandise or the ticket from the show to Amnesty International. So the tour is kind of like a play on that. It’s not actually a tour, it’s just a whole bunch of artists on their own tours contributing. We’re gonna contribute our profits from the second night’s merchandise to the tour.
PW: Cool. Good deal.
TQ: Yeah, it’s gonna be great.

PW: This song has actually come up a couple of times with a couple of different artists I’ve interviewed. I’ve seen five or six bands cover it at this point, but I wanted to know why you decided to cover “Umbrella.” It seems like a lot of my friends are like, “Fuck that song, it sucks,” but honestly, it’s one of the only pop songs I can think of right now with a positive message.
TQ: It’s a great song. I love the production. I love that kind of music. It’s something we would never do, so I really appreciate it. You know, from a completely different perspective, just hearing it. Riri [Rihanna] is so hot and when we were covering it, no one had really covered it yet, so we weren’t doing it to be ironic or for any reason other than we thought it was great. It wasn’t a huge song yet. It was big, but not huge. It hadn’t taken over the world yet. I just thought it was a great song. First of all, I think she’s a really good role model. She’s smart and intelligent and has a huge part in what she does. I love that she plays with her sexuality and she’s not a a traditional hot pop star female with the long hair and big boobs and, you know, she kinda dresses like a tomboy from time to time. She really plays with this kind of lesbian look with the short pixie hair cut and the tattoos. I just think it’s really cute and fun and hot and I think it’s a great song, so that’s why we were doing it. Then it got to the point where people were calling for it before we’d even started playing and I was like, “We gotta stop playing that song.”

PW: So, do you guys write everyday as a practice?
TQ: I like to play music as much as possible. Some days, like today, I won’t get to and I definitely feel like it’s an addiction. Sometimes I forget that I’m not just writing songs to write songs, that I need to put a record together and they need to be the best songs I’ve ever written and I need to stop pushing them out so quickly and let them sit inside and gather speed and stuff.
But yeah, Sara really likes to write and blog and get out there and we definitely have a million different ways and forums to do that. When we go out this fall, we’re going to shoot another show like we did before when we were making the record and touring (Backstage Bilingual and Trailer Talk). We’re gonna do a political show while we’re out. We’ll shoot a backstage show about the elections in Canada and the US which are both coming up, obviously, and they’re huge, huge topics of conversation in our world and we’re both obsessed. So, we’re gonna do that. We’re always trying to do stuff to get ourselves out there. I think we’re more than just a band. We’re at this point where we’re personalities in our own little world—at least in our heads. We’re gonna work on a book for the new year and continue writing the record so there’s definitely a schedule of writing, working, talking, music-making.

PW: I wanted to know, because you guys do spend a lot of time in the US, how the current political climate affects you.
TQ: It’s terrifying. The idea of John McCain and Sarah Palin getting in makes me rethink my whole life. I’m just kind of like, “Can we really go down to the states and tour another four years with a government who’s fundamentally against who we are as people?” That’s really tough for me. It used to bother me, but now it’s actually affecting me.
Emotionally, I feel really upset—panicky, almost. We just dissolved Parliament in Canada and they’re calling a new election. It’s so confusing. The show, I swear, the political show we shoot this fall, should be called, “You Think Your System’s Confusing, Imagine What Ours is Like.” It’s so difficult, the way it’s set up. It’s just so confusing. I’ve lived here 28 years and I feel like I don’t understand what’s going on. I’m like, “You can dissolve Parliament?” Anyway, the US, comparatively–I feel like, no matter what happens, the way our government is set up is really different. In America, it’s a popularity contest and it’s literally left or right and it’s really hard for me to swallow. It’s hard for me to understand. I just can’t imagine over the last few years, how on earth you guys would collectively come together and allow them to run the country. It’s so horrifying to me, it makes me sick to my stomach. I can’t imagine why a gun loving, anti-gay, anti-choice—I just don’t understand how it’s happened. It seems like a nightmare to me. It just feels like time is going by so quickly. I just feel so upset and like I wanna go smack the Democrats around and be like, “Hurry up, get it together! What’s happening?” I just feel so upset about it, so I definitely feel like there’s gonna be a lot of venting on-stage. But who am I venting to? I’m preaching to the converted. I say that, but I was just in New York and I was venting on-stage and went off about how I wanted to sleep with Sarah Palin, like, you know, antagonizing. This girl came up afterwards and was giving me a piece of her mind, ripping me a new one about how she was a Repulican and how I didn’t understand and blah, blah, blah, and I was thinking–this is a 25 year old girl at a Tegan and Augusten Burroughs show in a book store raising money for an AIDS organization. It was like, “Who are you? Why are you at our show?” So I say that I’m preaching to the converted, but I’m not. And obviously, with the way that our fans are, after every show there are a million YouTube videos, so I’m hoping that we can make as much change as we possibly can with what power we have. We put the Rock the Vote widget up on our MySpace page and they were saying that, out of all the bands that did it, more people came from our page to register to vote than anywhere else. So I know we have a really progressive, alternative, excitable young audience, but I think that they actually do have a lot of power, so we’re definitely gonna try and use that voice as much as we can in the next couple of months to inspire people to wake up. I thought people were awake and then I was in New York when they announced Sarah Palin. I was just like, “Oh, God.” Like, “Oh no, this is going to be so stupid. ” This whole thing is awful.
PW: That woman is terrifying.
TQ: Terrifying, terrifying. The confidence and the patronizing attitude and the whole thing is so insane. My mind is blown. I’m having a hard time articulating what it is that bothers me more. So horrifying.
PW: I feel the same way. I’m a gay woman and I’m terrified to live in my own country.
TQ: Yeah, absolutely. You should be. Everyone should be. I was watching John McCain on The View when he was talking about how they were going to elect people to the Supreme Court who were going to follow the Constitution as it was written and Whoopi [Goldberg] was like, “Can you say that again? Should I be worried? We amended the constitution for a reason. Are we going to have slavery again? Am I gonna be a slave?” People should be that outraged that he’s saying that. It is unfathomable that we would be taking steps backwards at this point in America. We’re already so backwards, how can we go any further? We’re like, two steps away from going back to slavery, it’s true. I just don’t understand. At the same time, you have Barbara Walters being like, “How many houses do you really own?” And I’m like, “Yeah, Americans are stupid.” Barbara Walters is an example of the complacency and the obsession with fame and fortune, rather than someone’s actual belief system and what that actually means on the whole, in comparison to the way the rest of the world is run. What Americans claim to hate so much is exactly what they are. It’s incredible to me. So anyway, blah, blah, blah.
PW: I totally agree with you. I’m gonna change the subject, though.
TQ: Dear God, I could talk forever about it.

Stay tuned!

Note: The views expressed herein are those of the author and artist being interviewed and not necessarily those of the publication or record label which they represent.

media wristband

After partying into the early hours with other media people, music lovers, and PopWreckoning staff, I headed back to Driver F’s pad to catch some sleep before heading to the bus station to pick up Editor Joshua at 6am (ugh, so early!). After some nappage upon returning from the bus station, Josh and I prepared ourselves for the promising first day of Austin City Limits. We scored some breakfast at Mr. Natural, a delicious 100% vegetarian ‘fast food’ restaurant on South Lamar Boulevard before walking the couple miles to Zilker Park.

Once we’d arrived at the park, Josh and I stopped by Press Check-In to get our wristbands for the weekend and headed into the park to catch some music we loved and some music we’d never heard of. There was a bit of a snafu with photo passes, so we don’t have great photos, but we’ve hooked up with new friends at Quiet Color to use some of their shots.

1:30-2:30 // Yeasayer // Dell Stage
Yeasayer was awesome. These experimental Brooklyn kids know how to put on a show. They definitely set the mood for the weekend, which is why I’d planned on catching them first. Their energy grew with each song, in turn pumping up the crowd for a rowdy weekend of music amongst the masses.

Having seen Vampire Weekend at Popped! Philadelphia and not having been super impressed with them there, Josh and I made our way to the media tent for some cold beverages and exited the park to a soundtrack of “Oxford Comma,” which sounded great, but not enough to deter us from our quest of Mango Green Tea Sweet Tea and XXX Vitamin Water.

2:30-3:30 // Jakob Dylan & the Gold Mountain Rebels // AT&T Stage
We happened back into the park as Jakob Dylan and the Gold Mountain Rebels were owning the AT&T Stage. Dylan, straying from success maker The Wallflowers‘ path, sounds strikingly like his famous father. Both Josh and I were absolutely impressed with the folksy tunes that flowed from the stage across Zilker Park.

3:30-4:30 // Del Tha Funkee Homosapien // AT&T Blue Room Stage
Nee Teren Delvon Jones, this man kept it old school and breathed new life into the air as one of the few hip hop acts on the festival’s 130 band roster. Admittedly new to loving hip hop, it wasn’t until Gorillaz‘s “Clint Eastwood” back in 2001 that I first heard his rhymes. As recently as a few months ago, I scored Delton 3030 and knew that Del tha Funkee Homosapien was not to be missed.

Later in the day, I happened to be hanging out in the media area while Del was being interviewed. He is a very cool guy. Following Del’s interview, Gogol Bordello was had a photo shoot at the Paste tent, so Josh snapped some pictures while I sipped on a Tito’s and Red Bull.

4:30-5:15 // M. Ward // WaMu Stage
Matt Ward was born to play the guitar. While it was nothing short of having seen him play twice previously this summer at Virgin Mobile and in Philadelphia, it was nice to see Ward shine on his own without the beautiful distraction that is Zooey Deschanel, the She to his Him.

M. Ward, Photo: Jessica McGinley

5:15-6:00 // Mates of State // Austin Ventures Stage
Having seen them the previous night, I was more excited to hang in the media tent for happy hour, but lingered long enough to hear this duo’s delicious pop sounds.

5:45-6:45 // Jenny Lewis // WaMu Stage
Ms. Rilo Kiley herself played a strikingly beautiful set aided by friends such as Jonathan Rice as her backing band. Jenny belted with an enviable set of pipes as she played mostly songs from her recently released sophomore solo album Acid Tongue. Notables from the performance include the album’s title track, “Carpetbaggers” and “Fernando,” but then I also find those to be album highlights.

Photo: Zander, Quiet Color

The crowd, not surprisingly, adored her. While it’s come to my attention that there are two camps of Jenny fans, those who praise her solo efforts and those who believe she’s only great with fellow Rilo Kiley band mate Blake Sennett, I can only say that her live performance is dynamic and should not be missed regardless of your thoughts on her albums.

Photo: Jenny Lewis

6:30-7:30 // N.E.R.D. // AMD Stage
Following the lovely Ms. Lewis, I wandered past the Austin Ventures to catch a quick listen of Eli Young Band as I headed over to the AMD Stage for N.E.R.D.  who were just amazing! Pharrell, Chad Hugo and Shay Haley killed. The crowd was totally into it both on and off stage, as Pharell invited some ladies on stage to dance.

7:30-8:30 // The Swell Season // AT&T Blue Room Stage
I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about The Swell Season, but actually found them to be quite boring at Austin City Limits. The audience was massive and the light show was fantastic, but I just never got into the music. I’d try my hand at an indoor Swell Season show, but I was left unimpressed.

Neither Josh nor I had any interest in The Mars Volta or Manu Chao, and though I was urged by a cab driver earlier that morning to check out Alejandro Escovedo, we split. A hot and dusty day in Zilker Park required showering and dolling up before we could hit downtown Austin for after parties galore.

9:00-11:59 // Gnarls Barkley // Stubb’s BBQ
On our way to the Antics after party at 508 House, featuring a DJ set by CSS, we stopped at Stubb’s to catch a brief chunk of Gnarls Barkley’s set. Josh and I knew we’d catch them Sunday, so we didn’t stick around long, preferring to hit up the Antics party instead.

10:00-?? // Antics After Party feat. CSS // 508 House
Kickin’ it to 508 House was so worth every single second spent there. The line was around the corner for a good part of the night and with good reason. We hadn’t realized that “House” in the name was so apt — we were literally at a house party. Tito’s had some handmade vodka free-flowing, Antics/Toyota were set up making shirts on the far and of the yard, chicks were hanging out of windows, CSS was DJing as kids danced madly and Wayne Coyne (yeah, that guy from The Flaming Lips) sat in a patio chair sipping a drink and casually chatting.

Following CSS’ sweet DJ set, we were treated to a new set which include cheesy dance jams “Vogue” and “Bootylicious.” Once we’d danced our faces out, we hit the streets of downtown again, wandering 6th Street in hopes of a new form of entertainment, but were mostly surprised to find a lot of bros and hos. Bored and slightly annoyed at the bro/ho-deo, we high-tailed it back to chez Driver F for some sleep to prepare for day 2!

Austin City Limits: website

Up next: Day 2

To tell the truth, all that buzz made me wary of getting too excited about this show. I was wary of the crowd (weren’t these college kids in elementary school at the height of Ben Folds Five’s popularity with “Brick”?). I was wary of the set list choice (why Reinhold Messner, of all albums?). I was wary of the expensive price (sure, $10 of every ticket went to charity, but wasn’t that still a little steep?). And, finally, I was wary of a reunion (how would it compare?). So, despite the dear place that Ben Folds Five has in my heart, I went in with reservations.

I hadn’t realized that there would be an opening act, so I was shocked to see Ben Folds Five drummer Darren Jessee, front and center, as I found my seat. I was a little unpleasantly surprised that there was only one other person on stage with him, considering that Hotel Lights‘ albums sound like a full band. While the pair sometimes changed the instrumentation slightly by switching between the use of guitars and a piano, the variety of sound was severely limited by the lack of people to play instruments.

Occasionally, there would be a moment where their sound seemed almost big enough for the venue—but only when both were singing and playing at their loudest. Their albums are beautifully simple, but still very rich—a full, but folksy sound, mostly reminiscent of a sleepy Ryan Adams. Yet, unless one put some real effort into paying attention, their set simply faded into the background, barely heard above the murmur of the crowd. They either needed a more intimate venue or a drummer.

Still, I’m glad I got a chance to see them play, especially with the appropriately sentimental touch of Jessee’s dedication of “Amelia Bright” (one of my favorite Ben Folds Five bootlegs) from his recently released Firecracker People to Ben Folds Five band mates Ben Folds and Robert Sledge. Hopefully, the next time I see them play, it will be under different circumstances.

Ben Folds Five’s entrance was met by a deafening roar (I was literally concerned for my aural health), so, contrary my concerns about the college crowd—the place was obviously packed with some real fans. I must admit that I was a little confused and disappointed by the decision to play The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, and even Folds himself stated “If I’d known about this gig ten years ago, I would have sequenced the album a little different.”

This show made me remember the tracks that I loved, and I even fell in love with some of my least favorite tracks. I was personally not a huge fan of Reinhold Messner, simply because it seemed overproduced and overblown to me—trying a bit too hard to make emotional impact, while still coming up short. Live, the songs were stripped down just enough to let them really shine. There were some instruments brought in beyond the basic piano/drums/bass format of Ben Folds Five, including a glorious timpani for “Magic” and an occasional horn section (seemingly of UNC students), but the extras were used sparingly, to my delight.

Answering the questions of many about how “Your Most Valuable Possession” would be performed, there was a guest appearance by Folds’ dad to read a transcript of his own early morning answering machine ramblings. Songs from the album that had previously seemed awkward and a drag on the pace of the record were brought up to speed and even made beautiful. Songs that had a decent amount of energy on the album really popped live, helped by Sledge’s energetic and entertaining performance. There were a couple moments where the band showed their rustiness—some harmonies that were just slightly off and some forgotten lyrics—but otherwise, I never would have known that this was a reunion show.

After a very clean set with very little banter and a noticeable lack of expletives, the band came back for a more relaxed encore. Folds opened by explaining that “Army” had been “the beginning of the end of the commercial success of Reinhold Messner.” Though the main set was beautifully done, the encore was all about having fun (oh, yeah, and the cussing was back too). Old favorites featured on their first self-titled album and Naked Baby Photos made an appearance, as well as songs from Whatever and Ever Amen. Plus, Folds’ anecdotes of the band’s former Chapel Hill life played well with the hometown crowd.

Remember that almost deafening roar I mentioned from the crowd at the beginning of the show? Well, this was a crowd to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, the band did not rise to the challenge of a second encore, despite an impressive chant from the crowd. Can I say “party foul” in this situation? Eh, maybe I just really wanted that second encore myself. I guess I can’t be too disgruntled, though, since the encore was almost a full-length show in itself.

The show was fantastic, my wariness was dispelled, and it made me remember exactly why I once considered Ben Folds Five as one of my favorite bands. Quoth Lavar Burton, “but you don’t have to take my word for it,” because the show will be posted in October at http://www.myspace.com/fronttoback.

Set List:
Narcolepsy
Don’t Change Your Plans
Mess
Magic
Hospital Song
Army
Your Redneck Past
Your Most Valuable Possession
Regrets
Jane
Lullaby
//
Jackson Cannery
Eddie Walker
Selfless, Cold and Composed
Battle of Who Could Care Less
Where’s Summer B.?
Julianne
Song for the Dumped

Written by: Special Correspondent Erin K. Staton
Photos: Emily Shur