.jeri.

Last Wednesday night I got to the Troubadour at doors opening time for the first time in ages. I've become such a lazy concert-goer. I remember when I first started going to shows, thinking that the people who showed up late all just thought they were too cool to stand around until the headlining band came out. As it turns out, we all get older, and it can hurt our poor little backs and feet and knees and shoulders to stand around for so long.

At any rate, I got there early and actually found the opening bands more of a pleasant listen than I've experienced in quite some time as far as opening bands go. First was Augustana, a young group just about to release an album. I liked the way their songs began simply and grew complex by the end. Three of my suggestions would be: don't have your music play automatically on your website and back off the mic when playing at the keyboard (seeing a string of spit going from a singer's mouth to the mic is not pretty), and open your eyes more often to connect with the audience. Otherwise, good job. The second band was Long-view, from Manchester, whom I had heard of but had never heard. I liked them as well. Can't find a website for them.

I don't know if I mentioned it, but we were front row, center, no barrier (I love small venues). My sister sat on the stage in between bands. As it turned out, being that close was almost a disadvantage when the lead singer of Embrace found that he could stand in between two speakers, right in front of us. RIGHT in front of us, as in we needed to back our faces away from having them look right at his "special area." The mic cord kept hitting my sister in the face whenever he stood there, which made me laugh until I was dodging it as well. Nevertheless it was a lot of fun to be up front and make eye contact with the band.

Embrace are an energetic bunch, and thanks to the Troubadour's newly expanded balcony, that energy led to some athletic climbing and hanging from the balcony while singing.

I have to admit I've listened to the new album a lot at work, so I knew the music really well while not knowing the lyrics all that well, so I felt kind of dumb when everyone else up front was singing along and I was pretty much reduced to a hum, but it was a lot of fun anyway. The band asks the audience to get involved and get jumping, and so we all got really into it, except for my sister, of course, who looks so funny when she's the only one standing there doing nothing in a sea of pogo-ing fans.

We stayed a little bit after the show. Apparently my sister's boyfriend knows every Embrace fan in town. He and my sister had already been to the in-store performance at the Virgin MegaStore that afternoon, as well as a few other shows, and he also went to the Jimmy Kimmel show performance as well. So we waited around while he chatted, and good thing we did, because we caught him a drumstick. Cool.

Fun times. And I've finally found where the free parking is around the Troubadour, so I'm all set for the future. Yeah!