Sloan

Sooooo, Saturday I went to my very first Sloan show. I've been wanting to see them for four years now but they haven't come to Houston since 1994 and I've never managed to be somewhere else when they're there (I missed them in NYC by just a few weeks two years ago, I was pissed).

Anyway. The show was fab of course. It was a *tiny* club (capacity of 160) and I was nervous at first because there was hardly anyone there for a long time, but by the time the show actually started it had filled up pretty well. And I still got to be in the very front.

Setlist:
Ready for You
Live On
The Rest of My Life
Losing California
C'mon C'mon
I was Wrong
In the Movies
Sensory Deprivation
The Other Man
G Turns to D
False Alarm
The Good in Everyone
Penpals
Money City Maniacs

Deeper Than Beauty (!!!)
I am the Cancer
The Lines You Amend
Chester the Molester
If It Feels Good Do It

On the setlist but not played: Coax Me (man, I was mad about that, it's one of the first songs I heard and still one of my favs) and Take It In. Oh, and where they did In the Movies and Sensory Deprivation it just says "Andrew."

Right before the show one of the guys who was standing by me was over on the edge of the stage talking to Chris. His friends were yelling at him to ask him to play Deeper Than Beauty and I was really excited cos it's my favourite song. But he said they probably weren't going to, something about not remembering all of it or something.

So the show up to that point, while seriously rocking, was slightly disappointing because they hadn't played any of my favourite favourites (although I do like Losing California and Penpals a lot). But then came the encore and they just busted out Deeper Than Beauty/I am the Cancer/The Lines You Amend/Chester the Molester (none of which were on the setlist) back-to-back, it was AWESOME.

Other highlights: on something (I don't remember what) Patrick was forgetting some of the lyrics. After that they were doing a Chris song and Patrick asked him something about remembering it and he was like, "Yeh, *I* know the words." It amused me.

When Chris and Andrew switched places, Chris was tucking his shirt in, and in the process he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans. So, yeh, I saw Chris Murphy's underwear (Calvin Kleins, for the curious), w00t w00t. Anyway, as he was doing this Andrew said something about tips from Carson, and Chris said, "Carson? . . . Johnny Carson? . . . Carson Daly?" Eventually he figured out that he was talking about one of the guys from Queer Eye.

Chester the Molester was being requested by some girl by the stage. Chris said he couldn't remember the lyrics so he had her come up and sing it with him.

Patrick had cool glasses and an even cooler guitar, with flowers on it. Andrew was intense, you could tell he was really into it. Jay was so cute over on the edge of the stage in a stripey polo shirt looking like he didn't expect anyone to notice him. And Chris--well, Chris has always been cute. What a ham. He was doing the whole jumping around/kicking in the air/making silly faces thing, which I was expecting from seeing them do Losing California on Conan.

Honestly, before the show I wasn't terribly fond of Action Pact (or Pretty Together, for that matter) but I was listening to it again yesterday and while it's still definitely not my favourite album, I do have a new appreciation for it after seeing some of the stuff live. The Rest of My Life especially I like a lot more now.

Afterwards I met Andrew and Jay. They were both very nice, especially Jay. I wanted to hang around longer to see if Patrick or Chris showed up, but I was pretty worn out (I'd hardly gotten any sleep the night before and it was almost one a.m. by then) so I figured 50% was good enough for me. Oh, and when I bought a shirt they gave me a couple of Action Pact stickers and *trading cards*, how cool is that?