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October 28, 2005
The American Analog Set, Doug Fir, 10.27.05
Thursday's show was the fourth time I'd seen the AmAnSet play in Portland. Two shows at the Blackbird were wonderful, tightly-packed intimate affairs, and last years appearance at Berbati's gave the group a bit more room to breathe. Appearing at the Doug Fir was kind of bittersweet, since I knew they would sound great with the pro sound-system, but lose a bit of intimacy and warmth.
I suppose I should mention I wasn't into the opening acts--Super XX Man and Vervein--but at least the dudes in XX Man had matching shoes, and Vervein were more interesting when the cello was involved. Plus they were all ladies, and the cellist/guitarist looked a lot like a friend of a friend.
By the time the AmAnSet took the stage it had filled out pretty well on the floor, and Azure and I planted ourselves up close to insure a good view of the action. After embarrassing myself with feeble explanations of how a vibraphone works and a funny exchange with lead guy Andrew Kenny (he thought I wanted to take a photo of the mic stand, but I was trying to capture the set list), I was ready for them to play some songs. As always the sound was full and vibrant, with rhodes organ and auxillary percussion adding to the usual guitar, bass, and drums and those aforementioned kind vibes.
Check out this video excerpt for a sample of the show. I wish I would have taken more video, but I was able to get deeper into the music without worrying about breaking out my camera all the time. However, I did take this photo of AK during his one stint on the vibes, and in my drunkenness didn't properly turn off the flash. I felt better when I went and apologized after the show, and he was totally cool and wondered if he had messed up. No, but I did feel pretty stupid regardless.
Azure was kind enough to swipe this setlist from the show, and I can only make out about 75% of the songs--they are totally using pseudonyms (in-jokes?) for some of the names--I think "Cho Chang" is some kind of Harry Potter reference, but I'm not really able to remember what the actual titles of all these tracks are, because once again I was totally swept up again by the beauty of this band (and I was pretty drunk).
Posted by j_john at October 28, 2005 9:20 PM
Comments
(belated) welcome to team tinnitus john! very nice first entry. you totally took it to the next level with the video and the setlist. rad.
Posted by: matt at December 3, 2005 5:17 PM
