I ended up arranging to meet up with friends for the Northampton and New Haven shows. Originally, I thought I would just drive home after each show, but it would have been incredibly tiring to do so. In the end it’s a very good thing that I stayed over both nights.

Northampton is a little over two hours from Boston by car. I arrived quite early and as it was a misty day I went to a coffee shop called The Yellow Sofa to get a drink and charge my cell phone. I ended up going back there twice during the day for various purposes. The people working there were great, so they all deserve a shout out. Yo, Yellow Sofa peeps, if I am ever back in Northampton, I will see you for sure. I was wearing my Devo t-shirt and two or three people commented on it, as is usually the case. Later on during the changeover between bands I noticed that the first guy who had commented on my Devo shirt was working for the venue. Unsurprising, really.

I got hungry after a bit and headed over to the discount natural foods shop across the street from the venue. They had some great stuff for cheap! I ran into Brandon and one of the roadies in the shop. I hung out by the venue for a while, eating my snack and scoping out the place. A friend of Sam’s from Florida came up to me thinking that I worked for the band. She was really friendly, but I didn’t catch her name. Thanks for being cool, old friend of Sam’s!

I was able to hear most—maybe all—of soundcheck. Pearl Street is a pretty old building and not terribly soundproof. I’m not complaining! They checked “Success,” “Summer Well,” “Barricade” (twice), “PDA,” “Lights,” “Barricade” (again), and I think “Summer Well” (again). It definitely seemed like they were working hard on “Barricade,” trying to get it right.

Some people I remembered seeing at the Bowery show in ’07 showed up and we got to chatting. We talked a little about Twin Tigers, and when I said I was having a hard time putting my finger on my first impressions of their sound, they said that TT remind them a little of early Smashing Pumpkins. They were going to the New Haven show the next night and will be at the United Palace show in New York on my birthday, too. Yay for new friends! My show companions arrived shortly after that.

Inside, the venue felt quite small—a little like Bowery Ballroom, but with less impressive sound. Alas, drinks in Massachusetts are not as cheap as they are in upstate New York.

The Northampton show was the first night that a second opener, The Postelles, was added to the bill. They struck me as eager little folks, and their music struck me as being quite happy. It reminded me of a certain segment of 80s college radio pop… sort of like the Rave-Ups, but that’s not quite it. A few of them wore hats. I thought they sounded pretty tight, but they’re not really my taste. My friend liked them a lot, though.

This was my third time seeing Twin Tigers, and some favorite songs started to emerge for me—“Red Fox Run,” “Gray Waves,” and “Everyday” in particular (and I still love all of those TT tunes, among others). My friend couldn’t stand their set because it was so loud—I can’t remember who told us, but apparently they were late to this show and had to use all their own gear (?). It was pretty much a wall of fuzz. I think I wore earplugs for their set, so it all sounded perfectly normal and good to me, but it probably wasn’t the best introduction to Twin Tigers for most of the people there. I’m not sure the guys recognized me right away, but my friend and I liked Forrest’s old-school U2 t-shirt (War-era) and told him so.

Interpol’s set was good, though not a standout performance for me. The setlist was the same as the first night in Rochester, and in fact I think they repurposed the one they’d used for the Allentown show on June 25th. I noticed that Dave Pajo seemed to be doing a little minor backing vocals during “Summer Well.” Either that or he was noiselessly mouthing something to the sound guy during that song. “Narc” was brilliant, as usual. A big cheer went up as they started into “Lights,” and after that song Paul said, “I’m hot as shit.” It wasn’t nearly as hot in the audience as it’s been at some shows, but the place wasn’t all that well ventilated. Anyway, the next night he would be hotter. Paul dropped his pick during “Take You on a Cruise” and played guitar with his fingers for a while before grabbing another pick. Sam looked unhappy about something during that song, though I never figured out what it was.

I didn’t get any pictures of note on this night except for a picture of Paul’s pedal board.
Paul’s pedal board in Northampton–taken on my Android

The crowd was remarkably tame after the show. People just sort of filtered out, and hardly anyone hung around. I thought about approaching the Twin Tigers guys to say hi, but I was feeling shy and thinking that maybe they didn’t remember me. My friends were pretty tired and wanted to get on the road, so after we hung around for a while and found that there was nothing going on we just left.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 23rd, 2010 at 8:18 pm and is filed under friends, music, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.