Went up to Old Town to hear one of Amanda’s favorite bands Crooked Still. Rachael, I think you would really love this band! They play old American folk standards (all about bandits and hooligans and whores and murder and mayhem), with a combination of blues-y, rock, bluegrass styles. Cello, double-bass, banjo and vocalist. Very sparse arrangements yet they just fill up the place with sound. Really intriguing. Rockin’ out.

Followed by Karan Casey, an Irish vocalist, who plays a mix of traditional and new. Fuller accompaniments. Very full strong soprano. Some real heartbreakers. Quite lovely. Bonus, her pianist was a) totally hot and b) a great pianist. His little solo set in the middle of the show: the “jig” was amazing!

Bonus opener: Minibar. Later they functioned as Pete Yorn’s band. They were better as that.

The dude from Aqualung has such a pretty, pretty voice but he sounded much better at Lollapalooza which is pretty much the opposite of what you’d expect. I mean, big windy loud outdoor concert or inside at controlled venue, aren’t you expecting the latter to be the better sound? I felt like both the bass and the guitar player were turned up way too loud so whenever they joined in, you could barely hear the singer. Some songs sounded good, but most sounded muddled.

Pete Yorn, on the other hand, his songs sounded pretty good, but his stage banter? Oh so lame. (Rivaling only Rachael Yamagata in that respect. Singing = great; her banter = Not.) “I wrote this song on the East Coast. The East Coast of the United States.” Wow, so informative! And of course, to be followed by a song that never once mentions either the East Coast of the US (or anywhere else). Next one: “I learned this chord. So I wrote this song with it.” Seriously, Pete? Stick with the singin’. The singin’ sounded great although every song was definitely played as pepped up and ROCK as possible, even songs that are very slow and melancholy on the albums. It felt almost like Snow Patrol: rocking anthemed out on every song. UP UP UP. Sometimes I like a little down.

So: good, but none were great, compounded by what was thought at the time to be a caffeine withdrawal headache, or possibly an allergy headache, but turned out to be buddha-only-knows what kind of murderous horrible headache. And unexplainable, considering the SIXTEEN hours of sleep I pleasantly got the night before. Yup, 3:30 pm until 7:11 am. Woot.