kevin barnett

Damien Rice’s biggest American fan, who also happens to be my girlfriend, gave me a ticket to meet up with her and Ivan since I was coming late straight from work. I miss the opening band, The Frames, and according to the setlist, made it in just after Volcano was performed.

I had given the O album a couple of listen-to’s, mainly for background play to see if I would pick up on anything. I fall short connecting with a lot of folk/singersongwriter music, although I think of Damien Rice as a David Gray/Nick Drake mutation - both of whom I like a lot but I haven’t been able to really get into this record.

The live performance is a different story. Damien has a great band with a great backup vocal singer (the fans know her as Lisa?) and the live string work is great. The best part is Damien’s work with a distorted bullet mic and his work on a boomerang pedal, both devices employed by my man Les C. And he breaks out a lot of his songs into heavy jams with some hard distortion on an accoustic so I was able to rock out for most of the show. Again, the ballad-y stuff doesn’t seem to be my cup of tea but it never really is at any show I see (hmm, Phish comes to mind).

However, any disappointment from the show really came from the lame crowd. Like Dave Matthews Band, the crowd has evolved from a group admiring the music to a drunken and obnoxious fraternity admiring their girlfriends who admire Damien Rice because they heard his music on the radio, read about him in a trade or saw him on a television show.

After telling the crowd a few times to “fuck off” during the slow shit, I figured he is starting to realize that he is a VICTIM of his own success. Hopefully there weren’t any wankers hanging out after the show asking him to listen to CD’s of their band or to leave voicemail greetings…

Setlist:
Intro
Delicate
Prague
Volcano
Woman Like a Man
Older Chests
The Blower’s Daughter
Amie
I Remember
Seven Nation Army#
Tongue
Me, My Yoke, and I
Cold Water > Hallelujah
Cannonball
Eskimo

# Vyvienne & Lisa
@ w/Colm MacConlomaire from the Frames on violin

I was just listening to Tool - The Patient

I just met/talked with Steven Soderbergh…AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was just listening to Beck - Minus

The first was at the church of a family friend who is also a minister…and in hindsight, it’s good to know that there are folks looking to explore other traditions outside of their own.

This dinner, however, will probably be much more memorable and may even start a new tradition.

I am pretty ignorant to the Jewish religion so I always seem charmed when I learn about Jewish ceremonies and traditions. Coming from a religion that is relatively new and a family without tradition, it’s nice to share in others. So Devin, Ivan and I set out to have an authentic Sedar dinner - and we did.

And we ate A LOT. Flank steak, roasted lamb, egg salad, and some other stuff that i will murder the jewish spelling (much less pronounciation).

Ivan was the boss of leading in the prayers and story telling and he sang all of the songs. I’m amazed at how he can just whip out some Hebrew on command…

After dinner, it was my duty to find the hidden mahtzah bread, seeing that I was the only one not bar mitzvah’ed. And I found it. And I spit it on Devin after she was taunting me that I would never find it. That was a LOT of fun.

I got to wear a Kipot - which Devin thought I looked sexy in. So my jewish look was complete, finally.

I enjoyed it a lot - hope it’s an event we can look forward to every year.

I was just listening to The Beastie Boys - Sobrosa

Gmail as they call it…if it’s legit, I need to be on the site the minute it goes live to get some good usernames…I say legit because considering the date, and Google’s history of AFD jokes…it could be another one like this…

I was just listening to Tool - Ions