Modest Mouse Rocks

I was blown away when I saw them in Cincinnati last summer. The rocked the house at Bogarts. It was a dark intimate setting and they were crammed onto the stage. It was amazing to see them play and play together so well.

Last night, outside under a beautiful August, if not unseasonably cool, sky I was awed again. From the opening song, Satin in a coffin, to the very end, they played a tight show and were on.

I am not a musician. In fact L asked me, when she was 2.5 to just please stop singing. It is bad, I have no musical sense. But I know what I like and I think since my musical ear is so off, I feel the music more than I hear it. It is transportive. It was no different last night.

I think that the guys of Modest Mouse, are musicians more than performers. Sure there was some dancing around, but there was no costume changes and no nonsense. It is just hard driving music. Throughout the night, I was forming something in my head and it finally hit me as they played their last song. It appeared Isaac was making love, with great passion to his guitar. Now I know, you are all shaking your heads, but really, it is as if he and the other band members are so in harmony (oh bad pun) or in sync with their instrument. It is as if they are one.

I love this when music comes from this place. This soul deep place, where it is not just sound but feelings and I do not mean sensations, although you can feel the music on your skin, but I mean where you feel it and see it with your minds eye and it just has to come out.

L thinks many of the Modest Mouse songs are angry. I think she is correct. I also think that the songs are resonant with those searching. There is a searching quality to them.

H naturally had to work this weekend, so I took a friend with, me who had never paid Modest Mouse much attention. I think last night changed that.

The only drawback to the overall show, was the smoke. I swear everyone there was smoking and not MJ - that I might have enjoyed that cloud by proxy, but no they were smoking cigarettes like a turn of the century Industrial smoke stack. The couple in front of us in the grass, killed an entire pack of camels. Ugh!

I could have lived without the cloud!

But it sure was nice to see Modest Mouse, living out loud.