2006-03-27 - 1:10 a.m.

Last night I went to see Lou Barlow at the Annandale. For those who don't know he was the lead singer of Sebadoh and one of the founding members of Dinosaur Junior. It was pretty good, except that the crowd wouldn't stop talking, and when you're talking about the Annandale, and a solo acoustic gig, that adds up to a major distraction. I guess he made his name as a pioneer of "lo-fi" Indie Rock, and wrote lot of songs about drugs, but you'd think if you paid $30 knowing it's a solo acoustic gig, you'd manage not to talk through the songs and actually listen.

I also don't think he's particularly comfortable as a solo artist. We have got a live solo CD of his which is really good (from 10 years ago mind you), but his renditions of most of the songs I knew seemed at the same time forced and understated. Having said that it was worth it just for the two Sebadoh songs he played loud and electric backed by the support band (Sounds Like Sunset)- "Perfect Way" and "Magnet's Coil". Made me wish I'd seen Sebadoh when they were around- not that I'm even sure they've broken up, or if they did it wasn't acrimonious and if they felt like it they would probably tour again. It's just that in the last couple of years Lou's been concentrating on solo stuff, touring with Folk Implosion and now the reformation of the original Dinosaur Jr lineup.

Other Sebadoh songs he played (because we all know I'm anally retentive) were "Too Pure", "Brand New Love", "On Fire", "Think (Let Tomorrow Be)","Skull", "Social Medicine" and "Willing to Wait". And most of the stuff I didn't know was pretty good as well. I think just overall the crowd ruined it a bit.

Anyway, I went with Alex (who I know through Jane who went to primary school with her sister) and I met up with Occy there (after telling him I was going to be there. We decided to give Club 77 another go after enjoying it for Alex's birthday. I previously said that it was back to how it was when Jane, Annie and Mark used to go there all the time, however it seems that's a half truth. It can vary a fair bit, depending on the DJ (the old 77 had the same DJs all night I believe)- last night we had everything from "Closer" to "Heaven is a Place on Earth" to that "Uh-oh, we're in trouble" song- oh yeah, and "Eye of the Tiger"- surely that's one song that should not ever be played in public, even at Retro. Okay, so maybe it was amusing. Anyway, the other thing was that for 10 minutes they cleared the stage and had this kind of Drag show (with "Boys Don't Cry" as the soundtrack- which neither thrilled nor bothered me, but I'm more pointing out that it's not old 77, where they just provided a room, music and overpriced drinks- but it's still a fun way to spend a Saturday night (except this is the second time in a row that I haven't been particularly drunk there- you really need to spend some time at a pub beforehand).

One thing that is very old 77 is stinging eyes and smokey clothes. I'm pretty sure it's actually illegal because even if there was a designated no smoking area (which I'm pretty sure there wasn't)- it would be full of smoke from the rest of the venue, and besides, the current law is that No Smoking is the status quo and they can have one designated smoking area. As the ad says- if the Irish can handle it then so can we.

So anyway, I think we stayed until about 2am and then went home.

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