Band of Horses Review

Since I have very little creativity when it comes to writing, I will use Sprys template as a guide. First of all, I am glad we got tickets ahead of time, because by the time we arrived to the Black Cat on Wednesday night, the show was sold-out. Lucky for us our good friend Potsy, due to his proximity to 14th St., has become our ticket resource. We got there in time to only see 2 tunes from opening act Chad Vangerlingsomething....I wish we had arrived a bit earlier because his stuff sounded interesting, but I cant technically review his performance based on what I saw. The headliners came on after a very short break between bands. I think I was expecting a more "hippie" appearance from the band members, but they seemed to have the alternative, Seattle, semi-grunge thing going on. I was trying hard to figure out who the lead singer reminded me of and the only thing I could come up with was a thin Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, sans flute...

Except instead of playing "Aqualung" (WTF is that song about anyway...,please weigh in)or "Thick as a Brick" (we all know what that is about...) he played inspired indie tunes which sounds a bit like My Morning Jacket (mainly due to his voice) I cant really remember what the other band members looked like, except for the guitar player/keyboardist on the far stage right. He appeared strangly out of place, wearing a button down oxford shirt and a clean cut demeanor. Kind of like that guy you knew in college, who dressed preppy yet smoked more weed than Snoop Dogg at an IMAX movie.

The music was very good, not great, but definitely above average. They played their entire debut album and threw in a few new songs and some covers. The ELO cover was surprsingly good and included a heavy guitar solo. I was waiting for the lead singer to put hims arms around the lead guitarist a la metal bands of the 80's. Yes, Kevin DuBrow, I am talking to you...

All in all, a very good show. In fact, I even bought a poster to hang in my daughters room, she seems to like it. I am the coolest dad on my block (not saying much...) On the RC rating scale I would give BOH a 6.8, which seems to put them above the mean in the past 2 months worth of shows. I apologize for using the sterotypical template, but at least I got to use some pictures (thanks Jimbromski...)