Went to see smog this friday aug 12 at the bowery ballroom. It was packed and I walked in as they were just starting to play.

Went up to the balcony and found a seat. Pretty packed downstairs though.

The first 2 or 3 were I believe off the later albums - unintelligible lyrics, lots of chopping words into different notes and singing them seperately. He pretty much did that the whole show, which was really annoying... He'd occasionally actually say a complete word and just go up from one note to the other. That's what got him famous on the albums, not that fake opera thing. Him doing that took all the emotion out of a lot of the songs... when he'd break back into normal album style singing it was a lot better.

Then he played this one "red dragon" or something that was new to me and it rocked. Just sitting down listening with my eyes closed. Then a couple more familiar ones (I've only heard dongs of sevotion and rain on lens and 4 early smog albums) that were pretty good. Live bloodflow was different and had me waiting for the girly chorus, but still was great musically and lyrically, and I could actually understand him. Then more old good ones... then he got on mic and was like "this is the part where I usually make something up... but I'm shooting blanks" in a pretty despondent voice... then sort of lamely finished up the song. I couldn't tell if that was planned... but it was pretty lame.

They didn't play my 2 favorite songs... "your wedding" and the one about the stars and the light in the dorm as a spaceship. Also they didn't play the one about getting hit by a car and recovering. That one's probably too sad to play very often though. The live versions were a lot more put together and didn't have the interesting gaps that the album versions do. They did play "dress sexy at my funeral" though, which was nice as the beginning of the oldies set.

The last song of the encore was cold-blooded old times, with the opening act "feathers" coming out to play violin and bongos... at the end of the song they all just started playing their instruments at maximum volume repeating little bits of the song. It went on for a while and was a good way to end the show.

so overall I thought it was a pretty good show. But if I hadn't had a chair it would have been a lot more annoying.

Really smog should play places where ppl can sit down and really listen. They're not made for a standing venue. You should be free from distractions to listen to them... the albums kind of build up and take a long time to get into, that's why I like them in the first place... songs of loneliness and anger that has no place to go...

In general going to shows is pretty disappointing, except for punk shows. Normal shows are just so crowded and sweaty and nobody really wants to stand up for so long. Punk shows are usually fucking great though. Tons of drunk people, the dancing is awesome, the music fucking rocks and you don't ever get tired of standing up.

The only show I totally fucking loved ever was the walkmen + yo la tengo. I really forgot where i was, forgot everything except how awesome the walkmen were. But there are tons of bands that would be great to see sitting down but not worth paying for if you just have to stand there and shift feet back and forth.

I usually just want the band to tear shit up a lot more than they do. Turn it up a few notches and really just fucking grind everything together. But they usually don't.