JI have been to WAY more concerts since moving to Cambridge than I ever saw before moving here. In fact, I’ve been to more shows since arriving in the summer of 2011 than I went to during the whole six years I lived in Binghamton, NY. Not only do more groups come to this area (instead of having to drive for hours to get to Albany/Buffalo/NYC), but I now have willing concert-going partners in Rae and George. No more dragging people to see weird bands they’ve never heard of!
Recently Rae and I saw one of our favorite groups: Ben Folds Five. The tickets were my birthday present to her and, luckily for me, she didn’t decide to take someone else!
Ben Folds is one of our top favorite musicians, but we’d never managed to catch him in concert before now. It was also pretty cool to see the whole group together, as they haven’t put out an album as a full band in years. Embarrassingly, I had forgotten to pick up their new album before the show, but they played plenty of old songs from their previous albums (all of which are 10+ years old — eek!). I loved the new songs too and now their new album is on constant rotation. The only thing they didn’t play were any of Ben Folds’ solo material. I guess I’ll have to go to one of his solo shows when he’s next in town!
Later in the same week (and also at the same venue) we saw The Mountain Goats.
The Mountain Goats is one of those bands that I like a lot even though I have only heard a handful of their songs. It might seem a little strange to go to a concert where I only recognized about three songs in the entire set, but their music is good enough that it didn’t seem to matter that I was hearing it for the first time. The only downside was that some of John Darnielle’s songs are seriously depressing! I felt like I needed a hug when the show was over!
For Science! 