"Another day to face up, another day to wake up...

on the Feed Kill Chain." ~ Jay Farrar, Feed Kill Chain

I can't stop this song from running through my head today. It's not a favorite but it is good, it's just the kind of day I'm having, and my brain trying to 'bring happy back' by reminding me of how awesome last Friday was when Jay and I shared the same breathing area.

Oh, hmm, that sounded stalkerish... well, we were both at Stubb's Amphitheatre for the same reason: to rock out to some awesome music. Jay's band, Son Volt came through on tour with The High Strung opening.

The High Strung were a group of 3 boys, two of which had amazing hair-do's. My friend and I were impressed with the way the drummer's hair ignored the laws of gravity, growing higher and higher with each beat. I'm sure the intense heat and humidity that night had absolutely nothing to do with it!

Then there was the guy sporting a sweatband a'la Andre Agassi over his flat, lifeless stringy black hair. But don't get me wrong, it totally worked for him. He also had on these glasses that may or may not have been plastic aviator sunglasses. We did not venture to find out such details, instead we hightailed it to the fence where we gave the heels a rest because petite girls get no love at music concerts.

Son Volt started around 9:30 and played until 11-ish. Jay was talkative compared to his ACLfest performance last September, which seemed greatly appreciated as we know he's not exactly blessed with the gift of gab, but the gift of sweet, sweet lyric and music-writing.

The set list went a little something like this:
1/ Satellite 2/Who 3/The Search 4/Circadian 5/The Picture(w/horns) 6/Underground 7/Beacon 8/Highways and Cigs 9/Jet Pilot 10/Automatic 11/Exurbia 12/Meth 13/Damn Shame 14/Voodoo Candle(the punky G/C loud and fast version) 15/Medication 16/Medicine Hat 17/Tear Stained 18/Action 19/Bandages 20/Drown 21/Afterglow __________ 22/2000 Light Years from Home 23/Windfall 24/Life Worth Livin (Reggae-style baby!) 25/Chickamauga

Honestly, I was surprise that he didn't start with The Picture. To me, the horns and the general energy of that song really gets things going. I also wasn't crazy about the alternate version of Voodoo Candle. The Reggae Life Worth Livin almost made me leave early. Does this make me a bad fan? Perhaps; but I have to be honest, I wasn't enamoured with those choices. However, playing Windfall, Damn Shame, Tear Stained, and Chickamauga made my night.

I was left wondering, "Where's Coltrane-Free?" It's one of my favorite songs on the new album. It makes this girl feel empowered and any song with the word "unfurl" just tweaks that little spot in my brain that likes... being...tweaked.

Yeah, so, it was awesome.

I ended up going with one of my girls. Since everyone at a concert that stands in the front is at least 6'0 tall, because let's get real... Son Volt draws a sausagefest kinda crowd (not that I'm complaining) and anyone under 5'5" is treated to a view of armpits and shoulder blades. Because I was hell-bent on at least getting a glimpse of the Jay and the Duplantis. She and I wiggled our way on our tall heels to the front of the crowd about 15-20 feet from Jay. Unfortuantely, it was about 5 feet from the wall'o'speakers (imagine the last bit in a deep voice echoing in a chamber!) Our ears retired about 30-40 minutes later and we hung out for the rest of the show near the sound booth where we enjoyed awesome people-watching and better-sounding Son Volt.

One thing I did notice is that the crowd at Son Volt didn't yell requests at Jay.I've never been to a show were no one yelled out requests... nor one where more reqquests were yelled out than at Jeff Tweedy's solo gig in Hogg Auditorium. I'm not sure what it means. It's not good or bad, just something I took note of. It probably means I'm thinking too much.

Any-who...So if you have a chance to see Son Volt or Jay in a smaller setting than a festival, I highly recommend it. ACLfest sucked in comparason to this show. I would imagine Jay is even badder-asser in a super intimate setting


Did I mention it was awesome? Because it was. It really was.

And now back to my regular schedule work time... *sigh*