All right. Hoping to post here more often. I'm not feeling well so instead of lying around and doing nothing (rather than writing my brief), I'm going to post about the Sondre show. A short one as I have a brief to write and reading to do.

Saw Sondre Lerche on Sunday. Promoting his latest album, Heartbeat Radio. Amazing album. I missed him last year when he was at the Great American Music Hall because he was playing the second day of school and I didn't know anyone to go with. Did want to miss it this time around, so I got two tickets and said Chris would go as default. But because I didnt' want to drag Chris because he usually puts a damper on things like that, so I ended up getting Yaeri to go with me.

Anyway, drove into the city and picked her up from the Tower. Drove to the parking garage near the Great American Music Hall. I had no idea how the cheap tickets for the GAMH worked, so we wandered around for a while asking everyone until someone at the movie theater told us we validate it at the venue. Fair enough.

We got to the GAMH around 7:30 and it was kind of awkward. So they do this thing there where you can get dinner before the show for a more expensive ticket. The one other time that I went there was for the Noise Pop festival so we didn't really experience it. But it was kind of weird coming into the venue and seeing all of these tables with people eating. And the security guards were like super anal about it too because they were more expensive tickets. So if you even thought about getting near the tables they were on top of you.

The show starts and it's still like that. People are eating and us cheapos are lined up behind the tables. This left a super awkward floor space in the front. It was kind of awkward. Anyway, other than that, the opening act, JBM was really good. I really enjoyed his set and was kind of sad that I wasn't closer to the stage for it.



Also he was kind of cool because he was playing guitar and drums at once. That's a level of multitasking that I will never attain because I can barely play the drums on Rock Band. ...among other things.



Great set in general.

After he finished, we grumbled a little more about the whole table set up until Sondre went on stage. He started with Good Luck, which is a great song. I'm pretty sure that's what got me through OCI. Haha.



Once he finished the song, he said that there was too much empty floor space in front of him, so Yaeri and I rushed the stage and got pretty front and center spots. As in we were front and center. As in we were within spitting distance. It was nice.

Anyway, trying to keep this short because I have a brief to be writing, so let's do highlights.

x he's got an amazing voice

x he puts on an amazing show

x unplugged rendition of two way monologue





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x did mostly songs from heartbeat radio, but he did a lot of songs from two way monologues and faces down. he also did one song from phantom punch. nothing from duper sessions though.

x he did words and music

good show over all












after the show we stood in the line to meet him. never mind the fact that i'd met him twice before but i got kind of star struck this time around. ... it was a really good show.



i also got jbm's album because i really liked him.

on the way back to the car, some girl stopped me and asked me why i knew all the songs he performed. ...they were on all of his albums except for the one cover he did, so i don't see why i wouldn't have known them. it was a strange question and an awkward moment because i wasn't sure why she was watching me and not him. i just responded with an awkward laugh. wasn't sure how else i was supposed to respond to that.

anyway, it was a great show and I can't wait for the next time he rolls around this part of the country.

I am not playing Monkey Island like I said I was going to. I decided that I should finally watch and return my Netflix movies, so I put in Frost/Nixon. It's not really the type of movie to play Monkey Island to, so I've been doing other Internet-related things. One of which will be blogging.

This movie is actually very interesting by the way. I spent the first forty minutes confused because I wasn't really sure what was going on, but it's pretty intense now that I'm into it.

In other exciting news, Sondre Lerche also announced his tour dates. So, so excited. I missed him the last time he came to SF because it was during orientation. I have to go this time.

Until then, I am going to do a short thing on the Tallest Man on Earth/John Vanderslice show I went to a week ago. Because it was over a week ago, I don't remember a lot of details, but I still wanted to post pictures. All in all, it was a good show to go to because the last one I went to was that terrible Third Eye Blind show. Ew.

I was also excited about the show because after being back in the Bay Area for a year, I kind of missed the Troubadour and the Hollywood shows. Unfortunately, we did not follow this one with the usual trip to Pinks, but we had Kogi Tacos a couple of days before so I thinnk that fills my quota of unhealthy LA hipster food.

Mia and I drove out to LA to Churro's house. We met her there and she drove us out to the Troubadour. She had to get cash along the way and I have no idea where banks are in LA.

Anyway, we got there pretty late and pretty close to the start of the show. It was surprisingly empty. Probably the emptiest that I had seen it in a while. It filled up by the time that the Tallest Man on Earth started and it was definitely pretty crowded by the time John Vanderslice was up, but it was still not as crowded as the other shows I've been to there.

Tallest Man on Earth's set was pretty great. I was more familiar with his music this time around, which was good. Still maybe not familiar enough to make the fact that I was pretty front and center not awkward, but it'd have to do. I think one of the most entertaining moments of the show was definitely watching him stare down some girls who were talking very loudly during the performance. Owned. There was also some pretty obnoxious drunk guy in the audience. According to Mia, he was very upset that Kristian Matsson was not literally the tallest man on earth. He was also comparing his music to Glen Hansard, which really didn't make much sense to me.





I also neglected to mention that during this set, the Troubadour was unbearably hot. I was dying. There was a breeze as soon as the set was over too. I don't know. I thought I was going to pass out. Not really though. That would have been a problem.

The set up between that set and John Vanderslice's set was not that long beacuse most of the instruments were already up. I did forget how shallow people in LA can be. As they were setting up, some pair of hipsters next to me were very distressed that he looked old, so they left. Their loss. The last time I saw John Vanderslice at the Rickshaw Stop was kind of weird. I mostly went to see the Morning Benders and actually did not know much of his music apart from the little snippet I heard on MySpace. He put on an incredibly good show that time (hence the reason I went to LA to see him again). It was, however, a lot more enjoyable watching the show knowing at least some of his music and not having the question of whether "Pleasant Inc" infringed on "Rick Broadway's" trademark (for the law journal writing competition, if you don't know what I'm talking about).

Where was I? I don't know. He, once again, put on a very fun set. They are amazing to watch live and put on a very fun show. When I saw him about a month ago, I believe he was kickstarting his tour. When I saw him last week, he was doing one of the last shows on the tour. It was kind of cool that we were book ending this. I eventually need to get more or his music, though. I totally recommend seeing him live if you get the chance though. It's a lot of fun.





For the last song, the entire band came out and played in the audience. It was kind of a party. The only thing that would have made it more awesome would have been if he (or anyone else) started break dancing as soon as it was over. Unfortunately my iPhone (forgot real camera) could not take good pictures of it.



Anyway, so after the show was over Mia pointed to some guy and asked if he was Heroes. I didn't believe her at first because she has a tendency to think random people are celebrities and then shout their name (like when she saw "Alan Cumming" in Italy). Then I looked over and, yeah, the person she was pointing to looked a lot like Nicholas D'Agosto, who played Claire's flying boyfriend in the second season of Heroes. Not many people remember hiim because, like Claire's gay friend from season one, he inexplicably disappared by the start of the next season. I'm sure the guy who can breathe underwater will face the same fate. Apparently Claire is going to have a lesbian romance next season. Perhaps she will have more staying power than the guys.

Where was I? Oh yeah, he's also been on the Office (Jan's assistant) and in a couple of movies (Election, Rocket Science). I actually saw both Election and Rocket Science in the same week when I got them Netflix. I didn't know he was in both films, so that was kind of weird.

Anyay, the three of us stood around creepily for the next ten minutes or so as the Troubadour completely emptied out trying to decide whether we should approach him and take a picture with him. Seriously, I'm sure he and his friends thought we were creeps because it totally outdid whatever creepy we did to BJ Novak (speaking of which, I finally have the picture from that). This is okay though. We eventually found a good time to cut in and ask if he was on Heroes. He said yes and we got pictures with him. When the first picture didn't come out, he moved us over to the restaurant where the lighting was much better. He was super nice. I also told him that I liked him in Rocket Science, so we could mention something in his resume more legit than season 2 of heroes. He was probably my favorite part of that movie, too.





Anyway, after spending all of that time with that stuff, we were too pooped to stop by the merch table, so we headed off. Churro also had to wake up at some ungodly hour to surf the next morning. Drove to Churro's house, got into our car and headed back.

Because we didn't get our late night unhealthy food fix in LA, Mia and I stopped by Fountain Valley on the way back to get carne asada fries at Alerto's, which Mia assured me is pretty much open all the time. Except at like 12:30 on that Monday night. This was extremely upsetting and we were pretty hungry. We decided to stop by Del Taco instead and had probably one of the weirdest Del Taco experiences ever. This included a discussion about whether we liked Del Taco or Taco Bell better. Good times. That's it for now. I want to get some MI in.