This review/rundown has been much too long coming.

The Boston show crept up on me. For some reason after the New Haven show I thought I had about a month until my next Interpol show, when really it was only two weeks away.

As the show was right here in my town, I arrived very early. There was no one else in line, so I sat across the street near the WEEI studios where there was more shade. I drank an iced green tea, checked to make sure my camera, lenses, and batteries were all accounted for and working, and watched as a couple of House of Blues people played wiffle ball in the street. Eventually two girls showed up and I crossed the street to line up. Those first two girls were really anti-social, alas. They didn’t talk to me at all—one girl had her back to me in a sort of pointed way the whole time. Sigh… typical Boston. It was so unlike my experiences at all of the other shows this summer. After a while, though, two more girls showed up and they were much more friendly. At one point one of these new companions saw Paul entering the venue and went over to say hello to him. We’re not sure exactly what she said, but whatever it was it had quite an effect on him. A little while later someone poked out of the venue and gave her a wonderful hand-written note from Paul and a shirt signed by the band.

For the Boston show I was reunited with my girl Sarah. She took the bus down from Portland and made her glorious arrival around 4PM. The weather was so gross—very humid and then it started pouring. We had a little area of shelter, but it was pretty nasty weather for waiting in line. We got suitably straggly/frizzy and wandered down the street to try to hear some of soundcheck. Interpol played a couple of new songs with which we weren’t familiar, along with a nice drawn-out version of “The Lighthouse” and some of the other usual soundcheck suspects.

While we were down there the Twin Tigers guys showed up and started unloading their gear. I felt disgusting and shy (I always seem to get all shy at first), but Sarah said they were trying to get my attention—I saw Forrest and said “Oh hi.” They were looking roughly as wrecked as I was—no doubt they’d been riding in a van all day and the weather was unforgiving. Everyone was in crappy jeans/shorts/t-shirts/frizz.

Free stuff! My photo passes (with the wrong date printed on them), the free ticket they gave me that I didn’t need, and a Twin Tigers sticker

Around 5:30 or so I went back to the car to change my clothes and attempt to neaten up. When I returned, Sarah and a few others had been moved to a different line. We were big enough suckers to go for the “Crash the Barricade” package, which gets you into the venue ½ an hour early. Oh, and supposedly the appeal of “free” water and “ice cream novelties” is also a part of the deal. Anyway, at this point I went to the ticket window, which can only be accessed from outside unless you work at the venue, to see about picking up my photo passes for The Postelles and Twin Tigers. They didn’t have the bands’ lists yet, though, so I had to keep going back to the window and checking. I ended up going into the venue with Sarah and having to go back out again twice to pick up my passes. The House of Blues staff were actually surprisingly cool about that. They’re not really supposed to allow re-entry, but they made an exception for me.

Sarah and I did manage to secure a good spot up front. Everyone around us was fine—mellow and not pushy.

The Postelles. Photo by Terri Wise, www.qromag.com.

I photographed The Postelles from the photo pit. I’d been told there wouldn’t be one, which seemed odd to me. In fact, the pit was pretty sizable, and the venue let me photograph their entire set, which was great. The crowd reaction to The Postelles was definitely the best I saw on their brief jaunt with Interpol. People really seemed to like them, and I think there were more photographers covering them than there were covering Twin Tigers. They already have another date scheduled up here in December supporting a band called fun.

After The Postelles. Photo by Terri Wise, www.qromag.com.

The opening notes of Van Halen’s “Running with the Devil” announced Twin Tigers’ set—they’d been taking the stage to that song for every show and I think I read in an interview somewhere that it was sort of their theme song for the tour. Uh-huh. They’d been slightly delayed as Aimee was having some kind of trouble with her gear and she was working with the Interpol crew to try to get it figured out. The crowd was really receptive for them, just as they had been for The Postelles, and they sounded as good as I’ve heard them, both in terms of their performance and especially in terms of the mix. Aimee told the crowd it was Matthew’s birthday and he looked a bit sheepish… like a little boy. Sweet! She said something about him being awesome. Aw… I’m pretty sure she invited the crowd to party with them afterwards. I particularly noticed Forrest’s guitar playing on this night and I was really impressed. At the end of their set (I was able to photograph their entire set, too) I bolted for the bar to get a drink and as I did Aimee got everyone to sing “Happy Birthday.”

Matthew of Twin Tigers (with Forrest’s fluffy head in the bottom of the image). Photo by Terri Wise, www.qromag.com.

Interpol’s set was good. For some reason I never feel like the Interpol shows in Boston are as amazing as they are elsewhere. Maybe it’s just the familiarity of the town for me. The first time I saw them here in ’04 was quite good, and they did sound good at House of Blues. On this night, maybe it’s the setlist that made it a little less than perfect for me. They played “The Heinrich Maneuver” (blah) and didn’t play “Leif Erikson,” which would have been nice for Sarah—and the rest of us! I managed to take a small number of photos of their set from the crowd. The House of Blues staff had told me that all cameras were going to be allowed going forward anyway (really??). They seemed pretty confused about their own policy! I took advantage as much as I could.

Daniel of Interpol. Photo by Terri Wise, www.qromag.com.

Their full setlist from Boston went like this:

Success
Evil
Say Hello to the Angels
Summer Well
NARC
Lights
NYC
The Heinrich Maneuver
PDA
Barricade
Take You on a Cruise
Slow Hands
Not Even Jail
—
Hands Away
C’mere
Obstacle 1

They dedicated “PDA” to Wanda and made a point of giving setlists and sticks to a small group of fans that we’ve seen at a number of shows.

Interpol. Photo by Terri Wise, www.qromag.com.

Afterwards, I said a quick hello to Twin Tigers at the merch table. We went outside, and then the TT guys came out and invited us to join them at the Cask and Flagon. I’d never been there before. It’s a big old sports bar and it’s kind of goofy. I got myself a drink (probably my fourth on the night and not my last—a lot for me!) and bought beers for Aimee and Matthew. I asked them what they were drinking and they said they’d have pretty much anything. Aimee said she’s poor and honestly didn’t care what kind of beer she had–said she didn’t even have a place to live! I got her a PBR and Matthew a Bud.

Sarah and I both talked to Chris a bit. He’s a super nice guy. I told him how good I thought they sounded that night and he agreed that it was good.

After a while I was sort of off to one side hanging out with Matthew, who had been texting a lot at first—birthday stuff, he said. He is a Braves fan… said something about being a poet—not exactly an amazing one (his assessment)—and then made some comment to the effect that the former poet laureate was nothing special. It was interesting to hear him and Forrest pulling out all this literary stuff. He mentioned that Sam is helping them—with label business, I think. I think I asked about them working on new tunes—wish I could remember the substance of what he said about that. I also asked if he thought they’d be on the tour with Interpol much longer and he said something like, “Sam likes us, but they all have their friends.” I told him that Forrest’s guitar playing had especially impressed me that night, and he seemed to get a tad defensive (!), saying that it was about the interplay of the two guitars. I was only making an observation about Forrest’s playing on that night—not saying that one or the other of them was a better guitarist. I told him they’d sounded especially good and he agreed and said that it’s hard not to perform well when you come out on stage and see all those people.

The night got pretty drunk and silly from then on. Sarah and Chris danced in the next room. Forrest and his latest girlie friend were somewhat entwined and they may also have danced a bit—not sure. Several drinks were consumed and foolishness perpetrated. Though it would probably be blackmail material, I SO wish we had some snapshots of the debauchery.

Eventually it got late enough and the bar got lame enough that the band wanted to head out. I was sad to say goodnight. The bar was lame, but we were having a good time anyway.

I had NOT been thinking and as I’d had so much to drink poor darling wonderful Sarah was forced to drive the two of us home! Medals for Sarah.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 at 4:54 pm and is filed under friends, music, photography. 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.