just a brief note here... more to come (including pics). but sondre was really great last night. i enjoyed the mix of his playing with the band and solo numbers, and he did a nice long set (about hour and a half).

i think he may have done a signing after the show, but i ran into him beforehand so didn't stick around after. i felt a little bad cause i interrupted him checking his email, hehe, but he was gracious and gave me a moment of his time.

concert photos can be found here:

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=4299689&u id=2203043&members=1

a few more here:

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=4300865&uid=2203043&members=1

aww thanks for sharing. i'm glad you had a great time.

alright, here's a longish review, more than you probably care to read, hehe. finally copied and pasted the report i sent to some friends...


I headed back to the Paradise around 8, and voila, good timing! As I approached the club, I noticed Sondre standing around... he was holding his laptop. So I walked up to him and didn't say 'excuse me' at first... I think he was engrossed with his computer so it took him a few second to realize someone was there. I asked him what was up and he said he was just checking his email and I said something dumb like, 'yeah, do it when you have the chance.' I looked at his screen and it did in fact look like an email in-box. I told him I was glad to run into him cause I had something to give him. That's when I explained how I read about his Belle and Sebastian concert experience on his website and how he only had their most recent album, so I decided to make a mix for him of their earlier matieral, and he was like, 'great, thanks.' so, i hope the sounds of B&S are filling sondre's tour bus, and that it makes him think of me, hehe. (i did write a little personal note at the bottom of the tracklisting). i guess i was in such a daze from meeting him that i didn't even register details, like what he was wearing, or what kind of lap top he had. i felt a little bad for interrupting his email session, but if he thought he could stand outside the club without being harassed, then he should have known better! hehe. so i asked to get a picture with him. he was holding his computer with his left arm, so he said 'i guess you should get on this side' and he put his right arm around me. Then i asked him to sign my 'TWM' CD sleeve, he wrote, Jenna! Thanks for the CD, and signed his name. i just think that it's cool that on his cd, he's thanking me for a CD! then i commented that I'd seen him twice before in boston but was looking forward to this show with his band, and that i caught them on tv, and he said 'oh yeah?' and seemed genuinly pleased that someone tuned into the tv performance.

so, i was on a high from my run-in, and entered the club (sondre followed... i guess he realized he should hide in the backstage area).

i make my way to the stage area, and what's this... there are seats set up! i'd never seen anything like that at the paradise. most of the seats were taken, so i was a little annoyed, but i wasn't too bummed, cause my timing allowed me to meet sondre...and a seat would open up later.

after the opener finished and there was some between set music, 'Love you' came over the speakers and i knew that meant sondre would be on next. around this time, i noticed there were two seats in the front row (they weren't empty during the opener). i figured they must have been saved, but i tried my luck anyway and checked them out... and it turns out they were free! so i parked myself in a front row seat and sondre came on stage...

he came out by himself and played a nice tune from the new album, "It's our job." After that, the rest of the band came on stage and played "It's too late." Band consisted of bassist, second guitarist (who also played slide guitar on some songs), and drummer, and they all contributed backing vocals. Sondre introduced us to the faces down, and said he'd like to think of them as his orchestra, but they were really just a band, and isn't that a lower cultural... at this point, he couldn't think of a word to say, so someone in the audience filled in the blank with "echelon" and sondre replied, "echelon, now that sounds very high brow." Again, he was a charming and funny guy and made me laugh. My second-hand accounts of his banter don't really do him justice. Next song was days that are over. Then suffused with love... the band put a different twist on this one, it was a little more... funky... than the album version. I really enjoyed it. Nothing against TWM, i do think it's a really good album, but the songs on faces down still affect me more. then it was a new one called 'john let me go.' really good and upbeat. sondre introduced it as a new one and said 'unless you've been sneaking around in my bedroom, and i don't think you have, than you haven't heard this one yet.' then it was another faces down treat: dead passengers. then a don't be shallow EP selection: i know i know. then 'it's over'. the band left sondre alone and he did this one on his own. i thought it was nice that he mixed up full band songs with solo ones. it was a beautiful, touching rendition... nearly brought a tear to my eye.
then the guitarist came out to accompany sondre for wet ground. sondre started saying that he wrote this song a few years ago, around the time of some tragic events. i couldn't tell if he meant to say the song was related to it or not (he was going on quite a bit and contradicting himself...), but it did make me think of the line "now airplanes are crashing" in a different light. then the rest of the band came back on stage and they played another new one, stupid memory. then one i quite like from the new album: on the tower. before this, sondre said the drummer misunderstood the title and thought it was 'on the towel', so during the song, sondre really annunciated 'on the tower' at one point and turned around to the drummer. then another old classic: no one's gonna come. the band really rocked out to the end of this one. as you can maybe tell from my pics, sondre played off of the other guitarist a lot, it was cool to watch the interaction between them, you could tell they were having a good time. then the last song of the first set: two way monologue. another one that featured some rocking out. i'm almost positive that they didn't play the extended version of the song that's featured on the album.

Then sondre came out alone for the encore. before he started playing, someone shouted out 'conan o'brien.' and sondre did a conan-style jump. he started to worry that people wouldn't be able to tell he was imitating conan, so he made a story out of it, "so, i'm at this club, and some guy in the corner shouts out, yes, this just happened, 'conan o'brien' (in american accent), so i tried to jump like conan o'brien but i don't think i pulled it off... if anyone on the street saw me do that they wouldn't be able to tell i was trying to imitate conan, who is the greatest tv host.'
anyway, he then played the lovely 'you know so well', another one that moved me.
he started saying that the next song he played solo for the first time in boston, and then he said, 'how many of you have seen me in boston before?' and quite a few people, including myself, cheered. he then said something like, 'you poor things... sorry, that was an offense. english is my second language, there's bound to be some accidents when i speak it. so what started off as an offense is ending up as a tribute, a tribute to boston.' he then said this song usually has a girl singing in it, but there was no girl around, so we could join in, and he (obviously) played modern nature. such a cute tune, and once again we did a great job filling in for the other voice (sondre said 'excellent' afterwards). then the rest of the band came on and they played 'sleep on needles', one of sondre's greatest songs, in my opinion, and it was awesome. sondre even did some rock star posing and jumping during the song and was surprised by his moves (he mouthed 'wow' afterwards... oh, and btw, i'd run out of film by this point), then he said, 'we're going to play one more song tonight... i don't want you to leave with the impression that we're trying to rock.' and 'maybe you're gone' was the song that wrapped it all up.
great show. and we got up on our feet to give him a standing ovation at the end.

luv your reviews jenna. you're bad for interrupting him and his emails. j/k, lol. sounded like an awesome day. this will be redundant but i'll ask anyways...is he selling any merch? how much?

i didn't look too closely at the merch table, but i recall a tee shirt (looks like the TWM CD) being sold for $15.