Let's see...my brain works again so I'll type a review of the show. First of all, click on this picture to see some incredible photos from the night taken by a member of The Avett Brothers forum who had front row center seats. All of the thumbnails I use in this post are swiped from him:
The show was being held in Greensboro which is about a 90 minute drive from where we live. Even though it's so far away, Greg and I feel relatively comfortable about the city because we got married in a castle in a little town right outside of Greensboro. We spent plenty of time in Greensboro scouting out hotels, restaurants, etc. when we were planning our wedding.
Earlier in the week we had read that the Greensboro Coliseum Complex was hosting two other events that night in addition to the Avett show, there would be a carnival in the parking lot and a Bull Riding show. We were a little concerned about what the parking situation would be like so we dropped the kiddies off early with the babysitter. We arrived at 6:30 and easily found parking, but the show didn't start til 8. Fortunately Greg had the forethought to pack an ice filled cooler with Sierra Nevada and a bottle of Chardonnay (he even remembered to pack a corkscrew - I love that man!).
Greg turned off the engine and we filled our environmentally friendly reusable keg cups with our respective beverages and sat back to enjoy the scenery. The scenery was indeed interesting. I previously mentioned that one of the other events occurring Saturday night was a Bull Riding show. The cowboys and rednecks came crawling out of the woodwork for this one. Apparently the dress code for bull riding aficionados involves denim and camouflage. You couldn't look in any direction without catching a glimpse of crisp button up shirts tucked in tight to painted on Wranglers. There were cowboy boots, cowboy hats, and camouflage hats as far as the eye could see. Even the vehicles surrounding our Jeep in the parking lot were adorned with a camouflage motif. I'm sure Greg and I stuck out like a sore thumb looking like a couple of long haired hippies and sipping on wine and microbrews. #smiliecocktail#
I finished a little over half of a bottle of wine and Greg polished off two 24 oz. Sierra Nevadas when we decided it was time to trek all the way to the other side of the huge parking lot to the auditorium where the concert was being held. I had a slight buzz and I wouldn't say Greg had a buzz, but he was in good spirits from the beer and excitement of the evening. As we entered the lobby and presented our tickets to the attendant I was a little worried I would get hassled about the video camera I was bringing in. The band and their managment had given fans permission to videotape this particular show, but the tickets plainly said NO RECORDERS/NO VIDEO. Fortunately the nice elderly lady scanning tickets didn't harass me. In fact, she didn't even glance at what I had slung over my shoulder.
We entered the lobby and there was a huge merch table set up. We bought a couple stickers, a t-shirt, and a Darling cd that I had been looking for (Seth Avett's solo side project). We checked out the alcohol situation...no wine (bummer!) and beers were $8 a piece. We said "screw that" and decided to chill with the buzzes we already had. We were about to go in and find our seats when we ran into Jen and Wendy, two really nice sisters who we met at the Raleigh show in June. We chatted for a few minutes before we went into the theater.
We were lucky enough to have scored 3rd row seats in the orchestra pit during an internet presale. We presented our tickets to the usher in the pit and she directed us to the opposite end of the row. When we got to our seats, we saw that 2 pieces of paper had been laid across our seats labeled "Mr. Avett" and "Mrs. Avett".
Apparently the boys' parents had been assigned to the same seats as us. We grabbed an usher and the confusion began. Nobody could figure out what was going on. We were getting worried that our great seats might be in jeopardy. #eek# Finally, the guy who organized the show comes out and introduces himself as Pete. He asks if we would mind swapping our seats for other seats in the pit. Apparently Mr. and Mrs. Avett wanted our particular seats because their friends had the two seats next to ours and they wanted to sit together. We said fine, as long as we stayed in the pit we didn't care where we were (our original seats were in the last row and corner of the pit so any other pit seats would be an upgrade). Pete goes and gets Mr. Avett's tickets and brings them back to us. We trade tickets and find that our new seats are 3rd row CENTER! Sweet upgrade...especially since we planned to videotape the show and had a much better shot of the stage from the center. Another minor bonus was that our original tickets were the print-at-home kind, but the new tickets were actual tickets so now we have real tickets as souvenirs.
The Avett Brothers came on stage a few minutes after we finally took our seats. The crowd went nuts and they truly received a hero's welcome. #worship# There were over 2000 people there, I'm not sure if the show was sold out, but if it wasn't it was pretty damn close`. People were stomping their feet and the entire venue seemed to be vibrating with rhythm and energy.
They started off pretty laid back with "The Weight of Lies", "Shame", and "Left on Laura, Left on Lisa". Greg recorded the first 3 songs and when his arm started to hurt we decided to rotate camera duty every 3 songs. As soon as I get the freakin' camera Seth plays "The Ballad of Love and Hate". I knew I would get stuck with the camera during my favorite songs! This song was a major highlight of the show for me. This is someone else's footage, but here's a link to the performance:
After "The Ballad of Love and Hate" they played a couple of faster songs, "Paranoia in Bb Major" and "Denouncing November Blue". My camera work was rather pathetic during these songs because it's really hard not to dance to these. I was happy when it was time to pass the camera back to Greg. Next they played "Hard Worker", "Pretty Girl From Greensboro" (the instrumental bluegrass jam), and "Die Die Die". The camera was passed back to me for the brand new song "Solomon", and two of my favorites - "Distraction #74" and "Go To Sleep". Once again I lacked self control and could not help but to dance. #dance#
I passed the camera back to Greg for "40 East" (sung by Bob), and two more new tunes "Late In Life", and "Murdered in the City". The latter was another huge highlight for me. "Murdered in the City" is a Scott solo song and the lyrics are incredibly powerful and heart wrenching. I almost shed a tear but I was able to hold it together. Here is someone else's footage of that song:
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=414463449658817485&hl=enThe rest of the band came back on stage. There was a piano on the stage and everyone was buzzing before the show wondering what song or songs would include the piano. The question was answered when Seth sat down at the piano for "Salina".
Of course it was my turn to record again during this major highlight. I was hoping for more songs featuring the piano, but "Salina" was satisfying enough. At the end of the song was a beautiful instrumental duet between Seth and the cellist, Joe Kwon.
The Doc Watson cover "Wanted Man" was next, followed by "Pretty Girl from Chile". They rocked the end of "Pretty Girl from Chile" hard with Seth at the drum kit, Scott and Bob on electric guitar and bass, and Joe on cello. JOE KWON ROCKS A CELLO LIKE NOBODY'S MUTHAFUCKIN' BUSINESS! #rock# This guy has been an incredible addition to the band, he's bringing a lot to the table musically.
They left the stage for a few minutes and Greg got stuck recording the 3 encore songs. They came back on stage to roaring, thunderous applause and cheers. It was deafening. There was a lot of love in the room for the Avetts. They must have felt incredible. #star# The encore started off with "Swept Away". Their sister Bonnie joined them on stage for this song and sang a solo verse as well as backup vocals.
The next song was Scott doing a cover of "Greensboro Woman" by Townes Van Zandt. I was not familiar with this song prior to the show, and although I didn't know the original I thought Scott did a really nice job with it. I was hoping it was another new Avett tune. They closed the show with "Will You Return?" which is one of my favorite songs from Emotionalism.
The show was around an hour and a half long, and I'm sure the crowd could have handled another hour and a half. We didn't stick around too long because we had a long drive home and the babysitter gets paid by the hour. When we got back to the Jeep we had a dead battery. I had to hunt someone down and ask for a jump. I think I freaked out a guy and his girlfriend, but we still got them to jump us. Even if they had said no, we would have been alright because a cowboy a few cars over heard me asking and hollered over to make sure we had everything straightened out. As much as I love to talk smack about cowboys and rednecks, they are good to have on your side when you are having car trouble! #aphead# At that point I was very thankful that the Bull Riding event took place the same night of the show. I quickly finished my bottle of wine before we hit the road and my buzz was fully restored for the drive home. We listened to The Avett Brothers the entire ride home and were singing like fools.
We picked up the boys a few minutes after midnight and finally walked in the door at about 12:15. We put the boys to bed and were too excited to go to sleep so we decided to check out our video footage. I fixed a couple of margaritas and we watched the entire video. It turned out great! I proceeded to get totally drunk from the margaritas and I couldn't fall asleep until after 3a.m. I woke up Sunday with a nasty hangover.
Greg worked all day Sunday on coverting the video to dvd, but he had some major software issues. I worked on it all day yesterday in a different program, and still had issues. We're going to work on it on our son's computer since it has more memory and free space than our main computer. Hopefully we'll have a kickass dvd of the show to be proud of when it's all said and done.
We're seeing The Avett Bros. again on Saturday in Centreville, VA. I'm excited! It's a microbrew/music festival and carnival all in one so it should be a crazy day. ;D I'm the designated driver this time since I don't drink beer and it is a microwbrew festival. Greg loves microbrews so he will be in heaven. Plus we'll be meeting up with some good friends from high school so it should be a lot of fun. #smiliedrunks#