hey, isn't that doug?

last saturday, we got to kick off our holiday weekend by seeing built to spill at the troubadour in LA.

while we were waiting to pick up our tickets at the box office, we found ourselves standing maybe three feet away from doug martsch, who was trying to convince the girl behind the window to let him replace a few names on the vip list, otherwise he would have to go buy tickets for his own show from a scalper. it didn't seem like anybody else in line recognized him, which is weird, considering that we spotted him from the other end of the block and the man can grow the kind of beard that should be recognizable from at least a continent away.

i'm the kind of person who loses the ability to talk when confronted with even the least famous of famous people. or any kind of people, for that matter. so even though i had a good five minutes to think of something cool to say to doug, i just stood there the whole time and watched him walk away. what a loser.

the show opened with car, which doug dedicated to the late andy capps, the band's former drummer. this was followed by goin' against your mind. other songs they played from you in reverse were traces, wherever you go and conventional wisdom.

throughout the concert they projected artwork by mike scheer (the guy responsible for the art on the new album) on a large screen in the background. kind of cool, sometimes creepy. at one point they replaced the art slides with a video of calvin johnson (of the halo benders and k records) talking about terrorism and the government, while playing a halo benders instrumental called bomb shelter. a little before that, they played a gladiator cover, an anti-war song called rearrange. (although I never really got a political vibe from built to spill in the past, doug did say in a recent article in paste that some parts of you in reverse are "about the administration, Republicans, right-wingers, people who spend all their time trying to deceive people.")

they included three new songs in their set, plus a good mix of old songs: sidewalk, carry the zero, kicked it in the sun, and made-up dreams, with broken chairs and an awesome extended version of untrustable saved for the encore.

the show was great as always. built to spill probably has the cleanest, most technically precise sound in a live setting than any other band i've heard. they're currently touring through the end of october, so make sure to catch them in a city near you.