Spoon

We arrived at Pimlico around 2:00 in the afternoon; a couple of songs into Matisyahu’s set on the South Stage. The bearded Hasidic reggae artist extraordinaire had already drawn a sizeable crowd by the time I arrived. Matisyahu has gained fame for being a novelty act for sure, but the man can certainly dish out rhyme and groove. His beatboxing on “Late Night In Zion” was the highlight of his set, dropping several jaws in the audience.

During the instrumental bridge on one of his songs, the lithe Matisyahu scampered up a stack of speakers to the right of the stage and clung to the scaffolding, waving out to the crowd. This was probably the most prominent stage antic I witnessed on stage prior to seeing Yeah Yeah Yeahs perform on the North Stage later that day. For the most part, the artists were complacent and weren’t keen on leaping into the crowd, spitting blood, or busting their instruments. After hearing a few songs, my next destination was the North Stage to catch Spoon.

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Three months after purchasing the tickets, the Virgin Fest date had pulled up to the driveway. My colleague and I had all we needed and departed somewhat late, inevitably causing us to miss Fountains of Wayne (something I wasn’t too concerned about). We were about fifteen minutes down the stretch of 95 between DC and Baltimore when Eddie Money’s “Two Tickets to Paradise” came on the radio. My colleague suddenly says “oh shit, the tickets!” I suppose Eddie Money finally did some good in the world by prompting a spark of memory and preventing two concert-goers from embarrassed idiocy at the gates.

Our arrival at Pimlico was greeted by instant sweat and a lot of people on the sidewalk selling a lot of shit at ridiculous prices. Pimlico Race Track is best known as the home of the Preakness Stakes, the shortest leg of the Triple Crown. That’s all I ever care to know about the venue. I reveled in the idea that this lightning rod for yuppie starched collars and people who give a shit about horseracing was destined to become a haven for freaks, bad beer, loud music, and a lot of weed during the weekend of August 4th.

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Seattle, WA – A Long, Long Time Ago @ Neumo’s (June 1st)

Unfortunately we were really late for All Smiles due to shows starting early and on time these days in Seattle. Also, I felt trapped at the dive bar across the street listing to some mangled-looking, old-man-river guy talk to me about the history of plumbing. He started the timeline over 2800 years ago when King Minos of Crete created the first flushing water closet complete with a wooden seat and everything. I was like, fuck, how are we gonna cover 2800 years of plumbing in ten minutes? But not wanting to be rude and perhaps needing a “safety” piece of ass sometime in the future, we powered though it.

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Photo by Laura Musselman taken at Easy Street Records in Seattle, WA 3/17/06

Crocodile Cafe
Seattle, WA
March 17, 2007

Let’s spend it all like sailors, babe, and pretend we just got paid…

The brief history of Philadelphia quintet Dr. Dog has been an extraordinarily lucky one. After their home-recorded 2004 album Toothbrush caught the attention of Jim James, he invited them along on tour with My Morning Jacket. Since then, Dr. Dog has toured with The Strokes, The Raconteurs and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and has garnered mainstream praise from the likes of Rolling Stone, SPIN and The New York Times.

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