Last night, Built to Spill played for over an hour to a sizeable crowd of their fans at Webster Hall. Between-song banter was minimal to non-existent; besides a few "thank yous" prompted by loud cheering, the band focused its energy on rocking.
Guitarist/vocalist Doug Martsch exuded tons of nerdy charm as he bobbed his head and delivered those nasal vocals some people love and others hate, but he had trouble hitting a lot of the high notes. This makes me worry about his vocal chords, as he has a big long tour ahead of him. Drink some tea, Dougie! Or just do what Chris Carraba does and make the audience sing those notes for you (j/k).
What BTS played off the new album sounded good, leaning more towards pretty, countrified jams than its prior experiments with more mainstream, poppy sounds. However, the band didn't skimp on the classics, with "the Plan" and "Center of the Universe" off 1999's Keep It Like a Secret eliciting the most excitement from the audience (the most awkward assembly of bad dancers and fist-pumpers I've seen in quite some time, I should note). Despite looking extremely tired and sweaty by the end of the set, the boys came back out and played nearly 30 minutes more when the crowd demanded it, and shook some people's hands before disappearing backstage. It's nice to see Built to Spill loves their fans as much as us fist-pumping nerds love them.
Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/chromewaves/
