Jess and I are going to see The Elms tonight in St Louis. Should be a ton of fun.

I love $6 shows. And spur-of-the-moment concert outings. Plus I’m not sure we’ve been to a concert this summer yet.

It’ll be a good break from all of this junk going on with work projects. I found out we need to put some Chinese content on the site.

Yeah, I don’t really speak Chinese…

Last night we ventured into the Delmar Loop in St Louis to that most historic (hah) of concert venues, The Pageant. Vampire Weekend was billed and we were excited as our plans to see them were twice thwarted over the summer.

Anyway. The show was great. They literally played every one of their own songs that they knew. That included three new ones that I thought were pretty cool. And they were spot-on the entire time.

Vampire Weekend at the Pageant

Apparently this was their first trip to St Louis. That’s good. St Louis, despite it being really diverse and just weird, has a really good concert-going scene. The crowds are usually great, and last night was not the exception. The guys from Vampire Weekend mentioned how much fun it was to play in St Louis and that they’re excited to come back with two albums worth of material next time.

What I was really impressed with (apart from the drum kit and guitars sounding FANTASTIC) was how gracious they were. They don’t come across as rock stars. And maybe it’s because I know a lot of people in bands, but that’s the same vibe they put out: just your friends who happen to have a band. And that’s nice.

The show was great. Kori and Jason sounded great, and Anton and Lewis (Patsner?) who are playing backup instruments with the Mates, were amazing. The violin, cello, guitar, trombone, etc. really added to the sound. It was a cool experience.

Mates of State played songs from all over their records and everyone sang along. The crowd was weird, but we’ll get to that later. First, the venue:

The show was at the Bluebird in St Louis. The Bluebird is attached to what I’ve heard is an historice St Louis eatery called Beffa’s. From what I understand, Beffa’s is kind of a lunch spot, and nestled downtown on Olive, right next to the Wachovia Securities building.

It’s tiny. The building almost looks like a local-access tv station from the outside. They have tons of parking, which is a rarity in STL for a venue. But when we walked in, I was a little bit surprised.

For those of you from GC that are reading this, the room is really similar to the old Blackroom. But the stage is smaller. The “bar” is a counter with alcohol on it and behind it. No taps, no register… It looked like a candy stand at a youth group. Come to think of it, the whole room looked like a church youth group room albeit for the booze neons and drunk college kids.

Jessica read someplace that the place can hold 400. I believe it can but it probable shouldn’t. Oh, and the ventilation in there is not existent. It was effing hot. We were dripping with sweat after being in there for 15 minutes.

The first band that played was called Gentleman Auction House and they were pretty good. At first I immediately thought of a band from here called Hot Fever. I think Hot Fever could be better than GAH if they were tighter. And had a good recording.

I’m not going to go about describing GAH; just check out their myspace page up there and listen if you want.

The second band that played is called Headlights. I think they’ve gotten some Daytrotter publicity and have been building their reputation. They’re from Champaign/Urbana. I liked the band’s sound, it was just boring after three songs. Sort of like Coldplay. Boring I mean, not that they sound the same.

Anyway. Mates of State played after and were great. The last time we saw them play was at the Desdemona festival in Cincinnati a couple years ago. Interestingly enough, both times it has been beastly hot at the venue. In any case, Jason and Kori had great banter, connected with the crowd, sounded phenomenal, and have a great couple of guys backing them up with strings.

We also bought their newest record Re-arrange Us on vinyl LP. As in, a real record. We haven’t listened to it yet, but I’m excited. If you like Mates of State, definitely check them out on this tour. If you get a chance to see them at a smaller venue, for sure take it. The intimacy of a small stage and room makes the tickets worth so much more.

We’re seeing Mates of State tonight in St Louis. I’m excited!

More tomorrow…

(via joelgoodman)

So. It was a great weekend. Weather turned out to be great for the event on Friday. Saturday was cold but no rain, which is a good thing. The headliners were great as were the support acts. No major incidents. All in all a great weekend.

I met Relient K’s merch guy (well, for this show). Turns out he actually is a freelance designer and did a bunch of stuff for Lovedrug back in the day. He also knows Rory and Chris Donahue at Militia. It’s always kind of cool for me to make connections with people like that. I mean, he’s kind of doing the sort of thing I’d like to do.

Sleeping in after these things is nice too. I went back out the fairgrounds this morning

Taking a break. Need some caffeine in my system. I’ll head back to “watch” BarlowGirl and then Relient K. RK is going to do a Flight of the Conchords cover (I’m not sure what…) – at least according to the set list Scotty showed me.

And Cors just ate my pass. Shoot.

It is freezing cold out here today. Its cloudy windy and in the 50s. We’ve had a couple issues with poorly executed sponsorships. But other than that things have gone fine

It looks like it’ll be 49 degrees by the time Relient K is wrapping up. Hopefully the wind will die down too.

I am watching David Crowder band from the light console at front of house right now. It sounds amazing. And I’m hanging with my good friend Scotty. I think this is supposed to be my ministry. I have some thinking to do. Pictures forthcoming.

I’ve been out at the fairgrounds today for a few hours already. Mainstage is going up. When I left for lunch they were still getting the lighting up. It’s freaking winding today and that’s never a good thing.

I’m a little worried. I think ticket sales will be fine (we’re ahead for presales), but the weather is looking terrible for this weekend. I’m praying it blows out and we get warm weather.

More later.