I have finally awakened from my 25 hours of being awake and thought I'd give my impressions of the concert. First I'd like to just talk about the crowd. It was mostly a "college" crowd, but there were a few older type people, but most were either creepy club guy who is always there and the regulars know him. The way past the hip prime guys. Usually the grad student type and then there was me, the slightly out of place guy that could be a narc, but seems to know the music.The college kids where your typical music kids, a tee shirt with a slogan, maybe a local team name or the art school type. The only people to seem more out of place than me were the three girls I'm going to call the groupie whores. Semi attractive, but wearing very short black dress. You know the type, any short and you can see her who-ha. I kept wondering what were they trying to accomplice, maybe getting some sweet monkey love from the band? They vaguely knew the music so who knows.
Seeing Ted Leo and Pharmacist live I finally put finger on their sound. It's rockabilly meets punk. I know that is still a little vague, but that's the best I can do right now. They played a couple of songs of the new able before going into Me and Mia, the crowd favorite. The song I liked the best was Heart Problem off of Shaking the Sheets, it has a great energy and Ted and the guitarist never stopped moving, they were all over the stage.
Ted had one problem through out the beginning of the set. His shoe kept coming untied. He mentioned that he needs some non-hemp laces for his hemp shoes. Of course someone yells "Smoke'em!" He did a nice bit about the makers of hemp shoes always laughing about wanting to smoke the shoes as they make them. "I bet they laugh with every stitch, huh huh huh, stitch, huh huh huh. I bet when they ship them they laugh... Stoners... you gotta love them."
They played about half of the new album, a huge chunk of Shaking the Sheets and a smattering of other songs they even played one they have never played before "Old Soul." They rocked it out so hopefully they will continue to play it. One other note about the crowd, obviously people were yelling out songs they wanted to hear. I wanted to yell Since You Been Gone, but I thought I might have been run out on a rail by the crowd. One or two guys kept yelling Freebird. I know you are being "funny" but stop it, after the first time it is no longer funny. Ted even made a comment about the resurgence of people yelling Freebird.
They finished the set just after midnight and came back for an encore and played Timorous Me, Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead and what I believe as the Ballad of the Sin Eaters, which was a great song to end the show. Over all a lot of energy and a good time, my ears are still ringing, which is bad, but I'm glad I went.
Oh, yeah the picture above. I noticed an increase usage of picture phones at the concert. I did not "want to be that guy," so I did not use my phone, instead that is the artist rendering of what I though the concert was going to look like and I left it for The Wife. I forgot about the guitarist so I'm short one guy and about 2000 people. overall I prefer my picture of a crappy cell phone shot that I can't tell what the hell it is.
