In my own "Channel"

I'm approximately a week behind on my review of the April 3rd Great Lake Swimmers show at the Bottom of the Hill.

So here it is. (I wrote this short review for my blogger friend, Liz, over at The Bliss List, so if it feels like it was just cut and copied from a comment on her blog...you know why)

1. First opener that replaced the Winterbirds was Ari Shine. Picture the lovechild of Ben Stiller and Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks/millionaire entrepeneur) and you have that guy. Unimpressive for the most part. Tough to dog on the opener of the opener though. Ha.

2. Kate Maki followed. A Canadian girl with grit and a charming smile. Fluid, tiny pop songs with a little noise here and there. I felt like I could meet her at the grocery store and never know that she's a musician. Very down to Earth in that respect. I liked her.

3. Great Lake Swimmers swam their way deeper into my ears. Much like the water-references throughout their albums (their new album, Lost Channels, is named after some body of water near the place they recorded the album), there music has a distinct flow. And playing live they don't try to swim against this, they flow with the normal sound you'd expect. Softspoken and a tad shy, they are true musicians. There's no care for radio play or bigger venues and you can see that in the band's eyes.

The best moment though? They finished the show with a fantastic cover of the Kink's "This Time Tomorrow" (which you might remember from "The Darjeeling Limited"). I don't think I could've asked for much more in the show.

It was a mellow show overall, but for me, it was just what I needed the past weekend.


Great Lake Swimmers - "Pulling On A Line"

Delta Spirit at Bottom Of The Hill 2/4/09

Took my first ever trip to SF's famous Bottom Of The Hill concert house/club last night. I say house only because it's basically a converted house. Or at least that's how I saw it.

Lately I've been seeing things in a generally weird way.

Anyway, aside from that the show rocked. Openers Dawes (myspace.com/dawestheband) and Other Lives (myspace.com/otherlives) provided two nice sets before

 Delta Spirit came on. My one complaint is that Other Lives didn't have their cello player turned up enough or something because the poor woman sat in the corner and played beautiful-yet-barely audible cello strings.

Delta Spirit came on around 10:30 and played to what seemed like a full house (not the John Stamos kind). Lead man Matthew Vasquez provided a ton of energy - honestly the guy could be considered mentally unstable in some way, he uses a ton of crazy facial expressions and head nods while looking at certain audience members. They played about 4 new songs that they said "would be out later this year" and went through most of last year's Ode To Sunshine.

This show was also my first concert with my new Rebel XS D-SLR. I didn't take many pictures but still got a few decent shots of Vasquez. Once I buy a better lens I'll be set for that part of attending concerts (I'm still using the stock 18-55 mm lens right now).

Concert rating: 8/10

myspace.com/deltaspirit
(I'd post a song but I only have iTunes protected mp4s...boooo)