The Outer Edges

Being the nice guy I am, I bought my sister some tickets to catch Modest Mouse some months ago for her birthday. She asked me to come along and enjoy the show with, and me being the lover of live music I am, said "sure thing". Well, maybe not in so many words, but you get the point.

Anyway, this was my first show at the Electric Factory down in Philly and my second encounter with the Mouse (having seen them last weekend at Bonnaroo. Now I’m not the biggest Modest Mouse fan, but considering my sister has had a five-year plus infatuation with the band, I’ve know of and heard plenty of them. My short viewing at the ‘roo let me know that this was going to be a decent show. But everything aligned just right to push the performance to the upper echelon of decent. The opening act, Camper Von Beethoven, also managed to kick ass and take names, which pushed the evening that much further up the great show list that sits somewhere in the receses of my head.

The Electric Factory
First impressions with the venue were decent. Large open space, good sound and some great use of lighting and video screens on one of the walls certainly gave this place personality. By the time MM hit the stage, the place was jam packed.

The Marquee

Sold out, back to back

Camper Von Beethoven
I had never heard of this band before, but right off the bat something pleasant stuck with me. The sound was very reminicent of alterna-rockers Cracker. I’ve since come to find out that’s because singer/guitarist David Lowery is of same said band. Even if that wasn’t the case (and thankfully, it is), they rocked the hell out of their set and gained a new fan. Pulling covers of "Take the Skinheads Bowling" and "Pictures of Matchstick Men" out of their bag of tricks certainly helped, but their original fare more than cut the mustard on its own. They’ll be in New York tonight, but a lack of funs and space on my schedule will keep me from taking in the sweet sounds again. Guess I’ll have to just get the CD and be content with that for the time being.

(Note: I’ve since come to find out that those “cover” songs I spoke of are CVB’s own originals as well. Y0u learn something new everyday….)

Mr. Lowery (I think)

Modest Mouse
Now having only seen about 30 minutes worth of thier act before, I didn’t know what to fully expect from Modest Mouse, but I had an idea it would be good. They certainly exceeded my expectations and I got to here a few of my favorite tracks ("The View" is fast rising in my personal mental playlist), so I was quite contented. Most of the night I fought with my camera and the shoulder to shoulder spacing on the floor to grab shots for you fine folks. Out of 200 or so pics, these were the bet I could come up with. Bless digital photography and large amounts of memory cards.

Setting up

Gearing up

The sister in question

The upper level bar area rocks for pictures!!!

The setlist and the fan who grabbed it (thanks for letting me snap this pic)

This entry was posted on Monday, June 20th, 2005 at 2:01 am and is filed under Photos, Show Recaps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.