Yesterday I was back out on the town to see another live band. This one was a bit off my usual radar: Guster. Ever late to the party, I hadn’t even heard of them until a friend insisted I listen to her favorite album ever, which was Lost and Gone Forever by the said Guster. So I tracked it down on Amazon Music and gave it a few spins (“a few streams” just doesn’t sound right), and it wasn’t bad! – a few pretty decent tracks on it. Then when I acquired a job lot of CDs from Ebay about 6 months back, it happened to include three albums by Guster in it, which then regularly made their way into the household mix.
So when the aforementioned friend, Sarah – the woman who put a smile on my face (literally, she’s also my orthodontist, and responsible for my current set of ivories), found out they were playing in Houston, she asked if I wanted to go see them. Which, after overcoming my usual feelings of inadequacy, I said I was more than happy to do.
Interestingly, each concert ticket came with a free download of their latest album Look Alive (which Uber-fan Sarah tells me is their 8th…). That’s a pretty good deal, and more bands should do that. Or offer a download of the concert itself after the gig (don’t Pearl Jam record everything and make it available for purchase from their website?). So, between that, the 3 albums I already had, and a bunch of stuff on Spotify, I was able to get a pretty good grounding in their oevre in preparation for the gig. Not that I planned on singing along, but I at least wanted to recognize what I was hearing (not that that helped last time I saw Bob Dylan, with whom you can seldom recognize a song even if you’ve heard it a hundred times – which I have with most of his stuff…).
The gig was at the Heights Theater in Houston, which was a first for me. It’s a small-ish venue, which, let’s say, allows for an ‘intimate’ performance – but it was sold out, which always helps. The website says it has a capacity of 500, but it seemed like there were a lot more in there – although I could have been double-counting the oaf who kept traipsing in front of us to go to the bar every 5 minutes. This was also the first gig I’ve been to where they check you off by name when they let you in. I don’t know if that’s something this venue does because it can because of the size, or the band’s appeal is getting ‘more selective’, but I just chose to treat it like I was on the guest list.
The merch stand was interesting. Aside from the usual t-shirts, CDs and vinyl, they were selling Guster soap (so you can smell like the band?) and Guster mustard! Sarah said she picked up a Guster oven mitt on the last tour, so clearly this is a band that doesn’t take itself too seriously. As evidenced by the Pac-Man suit the lead vocalist was wearing when they took to the stage, and the (presumably) ad-libbed song about how Houston was the best place to eat and much better than Dallas. Which it is!
The band were actually really good, despite looking very un-rock’n’roll. I think all five of them took turns on all of the instruments (bass, guitar, keyboards, piano, drums), and also threw in trumpet, trombone, (thankfully brief) banjo, and the signature tom-toms (the main guy on them was frickin’ awesome – must’ve beaten his hands to a pulp, especially when he kept hitting the cymbals, too…). That, and the seamless mid-song tempo changes was super-impressive. I guess not really surprising when you figure they’ve been playing together for 20 years or something, but still…
And the music itself? Much better than I expected. Not that I had particularly low expectations, but they’re not my usual cup of tea, being a little more toward the center of the dial than what I usually subject my ears to. Some of it was a little too cheery for me (especially with the high-pitched vocals – witness All The Way Up To Heaven) but they also threw in a few of their moody-ish, down-beat tunes, like the newish Look Alive, and a few others I couldn’t name but that had me nodding along appreciatively. But they also kicked it up a notch when they needed to (like on Barrel of a Gun), and slipping into some almost-Built To Spill-ish guitar freakouts here and there, which won me over. The highlight was a banging Come Downstairs and Say Hello, which builds up from a gentle ballad through cheery pop to a pretty satisfying guitar thrashing at the end. Very nice! Actually, the highlight for me was seeing Sarah bounce about 2 foot in the air with excitement when they played her favorite songs, which was just totes adorbs!
Anyway, on balance, definitely a good gig, and I had a great time – although it certainly helps to have someone enthusiastic about the band to go with… (It was also the first time I’ve been to a gig with someone else in about 20 years – pretty much since my ex stopped pretending she liked the same music I did.) I’m already looking forward to the next time they come through H-town, and I may well have to round out my Guster CD collection between now and then…
Leave a Reply