Sebadoh @ Lee's Palace

Sebadoh is the band I would've loved to have seen when I was 18 and hanging out almost every night with my friend Colin. We'd sit in his dorm room and talk about music and literature and people we knew, or goof off in the piano room in the basement, him bashing away at the keys, and me singing. He wasn't a trained pianist and I wasn't a trained singer, but we got by. And believe it or not, there was no sex, drugs, or alcohol involved -- just the exuberance of youth. (We were too young and snobby to go to bars anyway, which was probably part of it.)

That's why I bought tickets to Sebadoh's show at Lee Palace. Not because of the music, but because of the memory of those times. I haven't even listened to Sebadoh for years. All I have are tapes -- tapes recorded off of Colin's CDs, all those years ago. Okay, I do have a secondhand copy of Bubble and Scrape that I bought last year, but -- I don't know. It's just not the same when it's not played off of a paint-spattered Maxell cassette with my writing on it (back when my writing was legible).

Did the music hold up after all these years? It did. Colin always did have interesting taste that bucked trends. The set was typical of what I remembered of Sebadoh's oeuvre: jumping back and forth from raucous, quirky, and introspective. The latter two I had always associated with Lou Barlow, so it was a surprise to see Eric Gaffney and Jake Loewenstein spending equal time at the mic (and taking turns at the drums). It struck me last night that Sebadoh is like the jazz pianist Thelonius Monk, who still swings even though his melodies are offbeat and atonal. Sebadoh somehow still manages to have catchy tunes even though you'd be hard-pressed to hum them in the shower the next day.

I seem to have missed the first opener, The Bent Mustache (which was probably a good thing judging from this YouTube footage, but I caught Flecton Big Sky. I can't find much about them, which is too bad, because they had a surprisingly rich sound for a single drummer and guitarist playing songs in the lo-fi tradition. So the only other things I can say about them is that the drummer was remarkably enthusiastic for a two-piece band, and the hirsute, portly frontman seemed like he would have gladly given you a CD if you bought him a beer.

The person that got the most applause last night, however, was the guy who got up on stage and proposed to his girlfriend. At Lee's Palace. Yeah. That'll never last.

Flecton Big Sky website
Sebadoh website
Sebadoh on MySpace

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Got my mouse finger and credit card ready for this year's Virgin Festival. Like last year, it won't break my heart to miss any of the acts, but unlike last year, I feel like this lineup is worth my $138. And I need an excuse to dust off my swan dress.

And on my calendar for April and May: Brad Mehldau, Sonny Rollins, Arcade Fire, the Joel Plaskett Emergency, and trips to Las Vegas and Seattle, both musical meccas in their own way. It's going to be a good spring.