Saw Bishop Allen down @ the Crocodile last night.  Kind of a funny setup: an “all ages” show with a full service bar.   The area in front of the stage was split down the middle with orange construction netting — 21+ on one side, kids, parents, and overflow on the other, lending a strange Berlin Wall kind of vibe to the whole thing.

I first caught on to these guys about a year or so back when Pandora popped a couple of tracks from Charm School onto one of my mix stations.  I actually went out and bought the retail CD (tracks weren’t avaialable on Napster/iTunes @ the time) and luuvved it… “Little Black Ache” was (and still is) one of my faves.   They’ve got a new album releasing this month; I haven’t heard it yet but Jenny did and liked it.  Most of the their set must have been from the new material because “Charm School” and “Things Are What You Make of Them” were the only tracks they played off “Charm School.”

The set was amazingly short — 40 mins plus a 10 minute encore that followed the world’s most perfunctory departure from the stage.  (I think turnaround time was like 90 seconds before they were back out for the encore.)  Jenny sez, “What do you expect for a $10 show?”  I dunno… a 90 minute set? 😀

The most interesting thing about the show for me was that they’re a little less polished & pop-y live.  Don’t get me wrong, they’ve still got their docksiders planted squarely on the Ivy League Rock campus, but there was just a bit more garage-band lo-fi feel to the live numbers that was definitely welcome.  Good show all in all.  I’m just glad I didn’t have to pee or I might have missed 20% of the set list.