Mogwai in Concert OMG

Today, there is no album review, but instead, a concert review. On Monday evening, I was fortunate enough to catch Mogwai in concert, at Omaha's Slowdown.

The opening act was the all-male band Women. I missed part of their set due to the parking situation, in that spaces were generally unavailable within a couple blocks of the venue. However, Women was/were pretty good, if a bit uninspired. They sounded very much like a younger, less ominous cousin to Mogwai, albeit one that paid more attention to their song times (for better or worse). They rocked fairly hard, though I wish their songs could have been a little more dramatic. As one concertgoer in earshot said, "no band should end their set with a three minute track. I demand that a set be closed with at least six minutes of rocking my ass off."

Mogwai came out in relatively short order, and opened with "Friend of the Night". The band did a good job of playing through their back catalogue, giving the crowd songs from Young Team all the way up through their last couple of albums. (I was particularly pleased to hear some tracks from Happy Songs For Happy People, including "Hunted By A Freak".) While I thought Mogwai was very good, and quite musically talented, my memories from this show will likely be of the audience as much as the performers. The crowd was quite appreciative though not overly bouncy; however, the number of obnoxious drunks in attendance was surprisingly high. One woman somewhere in the back of the audience screamed between songs for the better half of the show before, I assume, being allowed to plague the general public and not the facility itself. It must be nice to be able to sleep in on Tuesday.

Overall, the show was quite enjoyable; Mogwai, despite being something of a down-tempo band, connected with the crowd quite well. I don't know that this was the be-all end-all of post-rock shows, but I certainly enjoyed the experience. Now, about those Explosions in the Sky tickets...

In Other News:

Support Your Local Catgun returns to its regular format sometime, or not.

The weekend looks to be mostly busy but good-busy, as opposed to why-did-i-think-this-would-work busy. I don't know if that makes sense tome or not.

I need to figure out what my next concert is going to be. It might be time for a flight somewhere.