The Polyphonic Spree, what more needs to be said. Last Saturday they more than lived up to their reputation of being one of the best live bands of any genre on the planet in this day in age. The spree preformed a riveting two hour set to a completely engaged and energetic crowd, despite the fact that Lawrence’s Grenada Theatre was only about three quarters full.
Due to the fact that this was a a stop on the co-headling Person to Person tour, the crowd was somewhat split between fans of two widely different musical acts. Rooney was the band whose fate landed them a spot co-headlining with the Spree. Tim Delaughter and co are a had enough act to open for, much less share the top of a bill with, and so it is no surprise that Rooney was little more than a disspointment. There teen friendly pop rock did not seem to mesh at all with the Spree’s style and therefor seperated the crowd into two clicks, both their for completely different things. Despite sharing the top of the bill with the 24 peice Dallas, Texas orchestra, Rooney’s time slot was only a mere hour and seemed to have little build up. To sum it up, its never a good sign when your stage crew is wearing self promoting t shirts with cut off sleeves.
Finally, after much hype, anticipation, and a slew of entertaining music videos presented by Videology, The Polyphonic Spree took the stage. Their entrance was marked by a cloud of smoke slowly crawling its way out from behind the giant red banner covering the front of the stage. As the tune of Together We’re Heavy began to play, Tim Delaughter slowly began cutting through the banner, and emerged through heartshaped cutout before finishing the banner of to unveil his orchestra, laced from head to toe in their knew military style fragile army garb.
The Polyphonic Spree played roughly 2 hours of tunes that hailed from all the 3 albums and their Wait EP, despite being anchored by tracks of their newest masterpiece The Fragile Army. The Granada had given the Spree a set time of 10:30-12:00, but that didn’t stop the members of the Fragile Army from keeping the show going for 2 jaw dropping hours. Their set was marked by plenty of crecindos, confetti guns, sun talk, and even a drumoff. About an hour and 15 minutes into the preformance, the Spree announced that all good things must come to an end and they would be forced to leave the stage. It was at this point that they played a mastered rendition of their song The Championship and proceded to one by one leave the stage, until all that remained was the harpist, and croud singing “All in good time, Raise our voices” in perfect harmony.
A few moments later, from the back of the theater, the collective emerged into the croud, making their way back to the stage in their vintage robes that had at one point come to define them. The Polyphonic Spree’s roughly 45 minute encore was defined by the 10 minute track “When a Fool Becomes a King” and an energizing, somehow uplifting preformace of Nirvana’s “Lithium” that even would have had the late Kurt Cobain cracking a bit of smile. The Spree, as always, put on one hell of a show. Not a single person left without feeling thoroughly joyous and with a positive outlook on what lies ahead in life.

Setlist:
Ribbon/ Opener
Running Away
Hanging Around
Get up and Go
Sun
Light to follow
Hold Me Now
Guaranted Nightlite
Justify
Mental (or Soldier)
Fragile Army
We Crawl
Championship
**********
TWH
Lithium
King
Light & Day/ Sunmachine
If you are truly lucky, you will have a chance to catch the Spree at any or all of the following tour dates:

Oct 22 2007 8:00P
The Gothic Theatre Denver, Colorado
Oct 24 2007 8:00P
The Big Easy Boise, Idaho
Oct 25 2007 8:00P
Showbox Seattle, Washington
Oct 26 2007 8:00P
Roseland Portland, Oregon
Oct 27 2007 8:00P
McDonald Theatre Eugene, Oregon
Oct 30 2007 8:00P
Grove Anaheim, California
Oct 31 2007 8:00P
The Fillmore San Francisco, California
Nov 1 2007 8:00P
Belly Up San Diego, California
Nov 2 2007 8:00P
Fonda Los Angeles, California
Nov 3 2007 8:00P
Rialto Theatre Tucson, Arizona
Nov 6 2007 8:00P
House of Blues Dallas, Texas
Nov 7 2007 8:00P
Emos Austin, Texas
Nov 8 2007 8:00P
Verizon Theatre Houston, Texas
Nov 10 2007 8:00P
The Telleyran Music Festival Jacksonville, Florida
Nov 11 2007 8:00P
State Theatre St. Petersburg, Florida
Nov 13 2007 8:45P
Cat’s Cradle Carrboro, North Carolina
Nov 14 2007 7:30P
The Trocadero Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nov 15 2007 7:30P
Rex Theater Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Nov 16 2007 7:30P
Terminal 5 New York, New York
Nov 17 2007 8:00P
Ramshead Live Baltimore, Maryland

Nada Surf is a band who has seen a lot, climbing up and down the musical latter throughout their career. From getting play on the MTV circuit in the mid-90’s with the hit high school anthem Popular, fading off as a possible “one hit wonder”, to coming on strong with 3 other strong albums that would lead to headlining tours as well as opening slots for indie giants such as Guster, Death Cab for Cutie, etc. Their current label, the always lovable Barsuk, has announced that Nada Surf will be dropping the fifth LP, entitled Lucky, on February5, 2008. According to Barsuk’s website:

“The record is filled with songs of restlessness, longing and the elusiveness of love, yet the band beautifully counterbalances its signature lyrical wistfulness with its singular musical buoyancy.”

You can listen to the first released track on Lucky here or catch them live at any of the following dates:

Oct 17

Louisville, Kentucky

Jim Porter’s Good Time

w/ Sea Wolf

One band everyone should be taking a close look at is Via Audio. This very humble quartet of musicians just released there debut album about 2 weeks ago and just finished a short midwest tour that concluded with an epic performance at the Monolith festival in Denver, CO. During the tour, Via Audio made a stop at My Old Kentucky Blog to record some live tracks for MOKB’s bogger spot on Serius Satellite Radio’s Left of Center (ch. 26). The tracks have a nice humble feel to them as you can tell they were tweaked a few times for a premium performance, yet are still have that raw quality of a pure live track.

I had the privilege of getting to spend a day with the band during their Columbia, MO stop and it was clear from my experience that these individuals are true musicians and have a bright future ahead. Below is the live cut of Modern Day Saint from the session. You can listen to the rest of the tracks here.

Please log onto itunes or go to your local record store and pick up a copy of their cheerfuly splendid debut album, Say Something Say Something Say Something. This cheerful indie-pop album won’t let you down.

Modern Day Saint live on MOKB Serius Blog Radio

Video for “Presents”

The Annuals and Manchester Orchestra, two bands that have released quite impressive records in the last 12 months, will be embarking on a Fall tour together. Things kick off on the 27th of this month with a stop at the Cat’s Cradle in Carboro, NC, the Annuals home state, and they will continue bringing their joint live show to most major markets in the US and Canada through mid-november. To go along with the tour, the bands are releasing a limited edition 7″ that you can only get at any of the shows mentioned below. However, those of that aren’t lucky enough to catch a show can download the track for free from the convenience of the interweb. Links to the songs are listed below, and a special thanks to pitchfork for providing the heads up about this one.

Annuals “Where Have you Been”

The Annuals took an interesting approach to this by layering some synth beats over the synonymous guitar chord of the original take. These beats, however, come to a quick halt for the lines “God, where have you been!” keeping the songs intended intensity. The only immediate criticism is the inclusion of roughly two minutes of synth to close out the song, which seems a but unnecessary

Manchester Orchestra “Brother”

Honestly, this song, already a favorite of Annuals’ faithful, suits the voice of Manchester frontman Andy Hull just well. Hull, who exhibits a level of fierceness on many of the tracks on Manchester’s full length debut I’m Like a Virgin Loosing a Child, slows things down a bit on this cover. In tern, it makes this a rather soothing track to listen to.

Manchester Orchestra/Annuals tour dates are as follows:

10-27 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
10-28 Washington, DC – Rock & Roll Hotel
10-30 Philadelphia, PA – North Star Bar
10-31 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
11-01 Boston, MA – Great Scott
11-02 Montreal, Quebec – Le Gymnase
11-03 Toronto, Ontario – Mod Club
11-05 Detroit, MI – Shelter
11-06 Chicago, IL – Subterranean
11-07 Minneapolis, MN – Varsity
11-10 Seattle, WA – Crocodile Café
11-11 Vancouver, British Columbia – Plaza Club
11-12 Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
11-14 San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill
11-15 Hollywood, CA – Troubadour
11-16 San Diego, CA – Epicentre
11-17 Tempe, AZ – The Clubhouse
11-18 Denver, CO – Hi-Dive
11-19 Lawrence, KS – The Bottleneck

Tonight is the night, as in the first part of the atmospheric journey radiohead is about to guide as through. At some point tonight (tomorrow morning in the UK) the golden ticket of emails will be sent out with the link to download radioheads newest artistic creating In Rainbows and I don’t think the music community could be more excited.
First of all, Radiohead is the perfect definition of a band who truly transcends genres in terms of their fanbase. From rappers, to poster indie rockers, everyone can relate to Tom Yorke’s brilliant ramblings in one way or another.
Secondly, this band seems to reinvent themselves with every album, enabling them to stay on top of the game. If you take a group of 10 fans and ask each of them what their favorite Radiohead album is, the answers will include each of their 7 lp’s.
Also, as has been widely publicized, is there groundbreaking move to let the listener put their own personal value on In Rainbows and name their on price. As crazy as it seems, this does in fact make since. Radiohead, being as big as they are, know that in this day in age most, if not all albums, end up leaking. So instead of hyping an album just to have it leak, they opted to simply beat the inevitable, make a surprise move and leak it to us. As strange as it seems, this is allowing them to make profit on something that would otherwise just be a deadweight loss. You can also count on the money actually going to the band, since they have yet to decide on whether a label is worthy enough to carry the physical cd/lp.
For those wish to get the a physical copy of the album sooner rather than later, can opt for a boxset that ships December 3. The set, priced at 40 pounds (roughly $80) comes with the In Rainbows album and the accompanying bonus disc (as of now the only way to get it) in both cd and vinyl form and is packaged in a sleek Radiohead book that comes with plenty of unique script and photographed.
Here is a live video of one of the only tracks you can here prior to the download emails going out. Its called Up on the ladder and will be featured on the In Rainbows bonus disc. And the countdown continues….