Nada Surf w/ Say Hi To Your Mom @ Bimbo's - $15

Feelin major blue lately, thought live music would help, it's always a lot of fun, even if I gotta go by myself. That's exactly what I did tonight, checkin out Nada Surf at Bimbo's. I've been a bit into their latest album especially when I heard a song played on Smallville recently.. ya I'm lame.

Rene actually gave me a ride up, we got some Korean food at Totoro, I've never gone there for dinner before. Galbi be good. She said she wanted to take a nap before going out later, lil party girl. There was a small line outside Bimbo's people waiting for will call or buying tickets. This kid sold me his extra ticket, I saved 2 bucks, go me. This is the cheapest concert I've ever gone to yo, nice.

Bimbo's s kinda odd, just the name itself. Situated at the edge of North Beach at Columbus and Chestnut, it's an old jazzy lounge with red velvet-ish booths all around the floor and a swanky stage with drapes and stuff

I was there around 8:30 and saw a couple almost getting denied the alcohol stamp because they had brought their French passport. I wanted to talk to them when I saw them later but I'm not just blue, I'm feelin quite anti-social.

Say Hi To You Mom the opener came out 15min later. They had some major issue with sound levels, I could barely hear what the singer was saying but the music was pretty groovy. The guitarist/vocalist was pretty good though his mic was messed. The drummer was cool too, he was cheering us on to start clapping at one point. Their bassist doubled as a 2nd keyboardist, it was weird, their keyboards were so small, like not much wider than a laptop (I'm probably exaggerating). This concert was so low profile that the band members were unloading their own equipment after their set. I guess Boom Bip did that when they opened for Interpol


Nada Surf came out shortly after 10, I thought the concert would end by then heh. They were kinda old, a lot more than I thought. I guess they are, their first album High/Low came out in 96. The band came out to do their own soundcheck, now that's definitely something I've never seen.


Bassist Daniel Lorca was this old weirdo with dreadlocks but I really liked him when they started playing, he had a really cool way to hold his bass having its neck close to his body so his other hand way out. It just looked cool. Dude was groovy. Oh yeah he really rocked me when he start smoking and drinking (wine and beer, hope that kept the buzz going)


I guess Matthew Caws the singer was aight, I mean he's also manning the guitars which form most of the song melodies.

The dummer Ira Eliot told a lame joke about Bush and messed up the punchline. Kid was wearing a white sailor outfit with shoulder stripes. Weirdness. Actually he had two huge mirrors behind him angled so we could see his playing. A bit odd.

From Weight Is A Gift, they played "Always Love", "In the Mirror" and "Imaginary Friends" and a few more. All the other songs I had never heard. They didn't play "Popular" which was their big hit in the 90s, I guess they've turned the page on that. From the fan belowin requests, I know they played "Stalemate" and maybe "Hi Speed Soul", both not bad. I checked out a couple of the older albums later and I can say they also did "80 Windows", pretty distinctive intro. Maybe they did "Hyperspace" as well. There was one song that was kinda dark, I really liked it, the bass was awesome. I found it was called "Killian's Red" off Let Go. In retrospect, "Blizzard of '77" was really good as the opener as well. I suppose they delighted the crowd with a song about cats and kittens and meows, I thought it was lighthearted but real silly. Some of the uptempo songs were really blah, there was this guy who was dancing his ass off, this chick next to me had to ask him to chill out hahha. Speaking of this girl, she looked like a really young (and white) Paz Vega, she was really cute, had a bit of that understated hotness I really dig. I think she was making eyes at me but the dude she came with was all over her, I'll pretend that was just a friend

I think they worked a cover of a Joy Division's "Love will tearing us apart" during one of their two encores. That was kinda tight, I wonder if anyone knew

A kid from the Nada Surf forum posted some videos from the concert


A bit underwhelming, cool venue though. Crowd major white. It's all good. Weed smokage kept to a very minimum, at least up front center. This one security dude who kept going through the front of the stage to talk to kids taking pictures/videos was so annoying

Concert schwag: Say Hi To Your Mom, I bought their latest cd from their drummer who was chillin at the merch booth




Say Hi To Your Mom - Ferocious Mopes

Gotta admit, discovering Let Go live was pretty nice too

Nada Surf - Let Go