Last night was the David Usher concert. Before the show K, sue and I went to Darcy’s Pub for dinner. Mmmmmm. The food was awesome, and the beer was darn good too. Nice pub. Sue and I will definitely go back someday.
On to the show. What can I say. David Usher is just so charismatic. Simply fantastic. The show was more that I had anticipated, and that includes the volume! It was crazy loud, but the crowd was lots of fun.
For me it is hard to distinguish between Moist and David Usher songs. They played quite a few Moist songs. Besides David, the bassist Jeff Pearce was also playing last night. Jeff and one of the other guitarists were having so much fun up on stage. They had huge smiles and were goofing off a bit while playing. It appeared to me that they would have little contests to see who could play loudest/fastest/whatever. Their dynamic helped make the show great.
The vocals were absolutely amazing. How he can go from screaming so loudly to something soft and quiet all in one breath was astounding. His voice never cracked once, which was pretty incredbile since he was putting so much force behind his singing.
David Ushers music is something I can never get enough of. I get his CD the day it is released, and after listening to it once, I am craving a new album already. His lyrics are something I love to read and try to interpret (something I am not very good at). His songs are somehow complex, yet very simple. This dynamic makes them infinitely listenable for me. I hear him play live, and I get a renewed energy to listen to all his music again (rightnow I am listening to Moist’s Creature album).
Unfortunately the sound quality was really lacking. The volume was turned up way, way, way too loud for my liking (and I generally like loud music). When the band was really rockin and David was belting out the song, everything became a jumbled wall of sound. You couldn’t distinguish any one instrument or person. It was simply loud sound. Horrible. At times there was some awful feedback too. This happened way too often. yeuck. The crowd interrupted David a lot too. Some songs the band would stop to be quite for a second before picking up the song again. The queue for them to begin was David singing, but when he leaned towards the crowd to start singing, their cheering was so loud, that he couldn’t start. It threw him off a bit. He also had to ask the people in the front row to keep their hands below his knees :0
He loves the crowd though. He kept reaching out, shaking hands while he was singing. He made eye contact very well. It didn’t feel contrived. Quite a few times he stopped singing and let the crowd do it. He always smiled and thanked us. I lost track of how many times he thanked the crowd for coming.
I really enjoyed the show. The next time he comes back through town I will be getting more tickets. I love his music, his energy, and his presence. It truly is a treat to see him perform.