Seattle Subsonic

I Can’t Get that Sound You Made…

September 5th, 2008

… out of my head. Though I can quite figure out who made it….
Built to Spill last night: fantastic.

Openers The Universal and Babydollars should have swapped set times, however. The Universal was scheduled to play at 9, and did so right on the money. Their 45-minute set was really good, though not nearly loud enough. A great match sonically for those that only knew the sound of Built to Spill, their brand of rock was solid and stayed well within the bounds of the territory of the headliner. If I don’t know the works of the support acts, I’d rather be blown away by something totally expected, or hear something complimentary, even if occasionally derivative of Pink Floyd.

Which brings me to … Babydollars‘ 10pm set. I can’t give ‘em more words than The Universal, so I’m only gonna sarcastically thank ‘em for putting out the fire that the previous band started. Bummer. No applause? No kidding. While they were noodling around and whining about something, I was put in a headlock by a rabid Ron Paul supporter, and was given a noogie. I rather preferred it.

A few minutes after eleven, BtS was tuned up and pressed play on “Perfect from Now On.” They hammered out the track list, starting with “Randy Described Eternity” and didn’t let up (or chatter between songs) until the closing notes of “Untrustable”, a song that’s particularly meaningful to me this week. (Ya know who ya are.)

They darted backstage for a moment, and returned with a three-song encore: “Goin’ Against Your Mind”, “Big Dipper” and “You Were Right”. The last two prompted some really enthusiastic singing by the fans, many of whom had been mumbling along the words of the show for an hour. (Finally! One we can participate in!) I think this actually generated a tiny glimmer of joy in the eyes of otherwise stoic frontman Doug Martsch. I hadn’t listened to “You Were Right” in a year or more. A genuine tribute to rock that uniquely cribs its own anthems, it is a tremendous way to say good night to a crowd. Bravo for a well-designed show.