just as i did with the ten year anniversary, i got to see a merge band the night before i traveled to north carolina. in 99 it was ladybug transistor with beulah & the apples in stereo, 2004 brought us merge artists camera obscura and the rosebuds at the north star.

from what i understand the opener, menocu, showed up too late and couldnt perform. they’re local but ive never heard them. [i know. out of anyone in philly, i should be the last person to say such a thing]

the rosebuds took the stage next trying to rock the pants off the lazy philadelphia crowd. aside from me, i spotted 3 people dancing in the audience while the front row sat down crosslegged at the foot of the stage. what the heck? i can understand that kind of behavior at an azusa plane concert but for a band that is pretty upbeat? no way. inexcusable.

the band got a new drummer since i last saw them at sxsw and he seems to be working out really well. the new songs previewed were really great, especially this one be-bop-ish tune that erupts into garagey noise during the choruses. im looking forward to hearing their next full-length.

if you thought the audience sitting down during a loud rock band was funny, they all got up for camera obscura and appeared to be — gasp! — lively. and for the life of me, i cant figure out why. camera obscura are middle of the road, librarians-and-cable-knit sweaters kind of rock. i dont even like belle & sebastian but i felt kind of sorry for B&S because now they have to deal with being partially responsible for spawing 56,357,575,757,597,547,575 horrible bands. calvin johnson didnt ruin rock for a whole generation, stuart murdoch did.

to their credit, i will say this: their cover of “sugar town” was nice. even the part where they broke into “blue moon”, only because it sounded different from the rest of the stuff they playing!

after the show, doug [my traveling partner] drove me home and i proceeded to stay up for hours packing.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2004 at 4:03 pm and is filed under live performances.