We went to see the Decemberists on the Friday night of our last Chicago cultural weekend; 3\/27, my brother’s birthday.<\/p>\n
It was my call – I wanted to see them. I like the Decemberists because they’ve played with the other artists who I really follow – Peter Buck and Robyn Hitchcock, primarily. And, although I think he comes to it by way of reading and being an English & creative writing major, Colin Meloy has that folk rock musicologist outlook on music that I like – he can write songs that sound like traditional folk songs by way of rock & pop. They didn’t do any on Friday, but it also means he chooses interesting covers.<\/p>\n
The show was at the Chicago Theater<\/a>, which was a pleasant upgrade from the Riviera, where we saw the Punch Brothers in February. One of the crumbling movie palaces in Chicago, that now mostly have live music, the Riviera<\/a>, the Uptown<\/a> (closed, but I saw the Grateful Dead<\/a> there in 1978), and the Aragon Ballroom<\/a>, in a three block radius, and the Vic<\/a>, a little further south, and a little less crumbled.<\/p>\n