This is the story of your gypsy uncle...
I went to another great show at Opolis last night. The Decemberists made their first ever visit to Oklahoma in what turned out to be an outstanding performance.
I've been into the Decemberists for nearly a year now and have grown to really love their album, Her Majesty. Colin Meloy, the lead singer, has a very unique voice and outstanding writing ability. The lyrical content is very smart, intellectual and at times satirical. The dripping sarcasm brings artists such as the Smiths and Belle and Sebastian to mind.
The band turned out to be excellent live. The last concert I saw at Opolis was another great band Spoon which was a very respectable show. This performance I think was as good or possibly even better. I was curious to see what Colin looked like in person. I imagined a short and skinny man to produce what is at times a rather effeminate sounding voice. While he was at or below average height he wasn't as skinny as I thought he might be. He had a head of bushy dark red hair and glasses. His stage presence was very warm and inviting. His delivery was always confident and skilled.
Another performer who really impressed me was the keyboard/organ player. I don't know her name but she didn't strike me as the type you often see in a rock band. She proved to really be a skilled musician and really added to their live sound.
I told my sister before the show my 2 favourite songs by The Decemberists were "Red Right Ankle" and "I Was Meant for the Stage". It turns out those were the 2 songs they played for the encore. I couldn't have asked for a better set list.
I did get some good photos but haven't had a chance to upload them yet. I'm trying to work in completing the England photo sets. I was able to get the Liverpool set completed tonight. Look for the Manchester photos and the last of the London photos soon to finish them out.
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I am watching SNL right now and I just saw something hilarious. Ashlee Simpson is the musical performer. She was about to start playing but they totally messed up the sound and started playing her dubbed lip sync vocals right at the beginning before they even started. It made her look like a fool and she started doing a goofy dance, then started laughing and walked of the stage. The band played some generic sounding post-post emo wanna be guitar riffs then they just cut back to a commercial. Good thing I have tivo so I could re-live the humour again. At the end of the show Ashlee claimed "my band starting playing the wrong song, so I just decided to do a ho down".