A trip to Chicago that lasted less than 24 hours. Tickets to see Arcade Fire & The National at the University of Illinois Pavilion.
Admission: I’ve tried to grok Arcade Fire, and though I’ve liked their music, I never played their albums over and over.
Heard they put on an excellent show, figured this would be a good opportunity.
And it was excellent. I’m now a fan.
They were energetic and engaging, sprawling across the stage, trading instruments and vocal duties. It was pretty dang great and now I understand what all the fuss is about.
The National? They opened and even without the benefit of their own staging, they filled up a set with excellent renditions of their songs. I knew every single thing they played with is rare with me these days, so familiarity added immensely to the pleasure.
The trip there went by well enough. No traffic ’til we hit Chicago.
Brand tangent: I was really impressed with the identity for this gas station along the route.
Sure it’s always nice to see Futura, but the fact thatthe straws matched at Luke Oil deserves extra props.
Condiments!
Appetizing eh? With shots like this, it makes you wonder why it might take me a month to update my album!