Built to Spill Was Built to Rock

September 25, 2009 11:03 PM

or the second time since I've been here, Built to Spill came to the Barrymore Theatre. And for the second time since I've been here, Built to Spill put on one of the most best shows I've ever seen.

The set list was a very good mix of older stuff and stuff I've never heard, presumably because it's on their new album. While they failed--again!--to play "Car," they did play my two other favorite BtS songs: "Virginia Reel Around the Fountain" and "Else." Both versions were spectacular.

Doug Martsch is an amazing guitarist. He might not be the most technically proficient guy out there, but he's so good at stringing together riffs and chords and different parts. Each of the songs has a natural, interesting progression. And the whole band just brings an amazing amount of energy to the material in the live setting. At the same time, though, the band gave off a very mature sort of vibe. There weren't any attention-grabbing histrionics. In fact, the band barely talked to the audience at all during the set. But they were clearly enjoying what they were doing, and I think that enthusiasm rubbed off on the audience. It certainly did on me, anyway.

Owing to the fact that we got there super-early, we ended up leaning on the stage for the whole show. This was my view:

Here's one of the other guitarists:

That guy was actually sort of interesting. His pedal board consisted of a really beat-up piece of OSB with a bunch of pedals zip-tied to it. His guitar was a very strange looking Fender that was completely finish-free; it was just a big block of wood with beautiful grain running throughout. But the oddest part of his whole setup was his amp, which literally looked like a couple of speakers mounted into some 2x4s that had been nailed together. All of that, combined with his general mountain-man appearance, made me think that the guy was a hermit who had only recently rejoined civilization or something. here's an admittedly unclear picture of the guy's homemade amp:

Right after the band finished playing their last song, literally right after the last chord had faded away, they started tearing down their own equipment. And then something really cool happened: they started talking to the people who were still there. First, people started thanking the mountain-man guitarist (I can't figure out what his name is) for putting on such a great show. I joined right in on that. Then he started shaking people's hands. Then I approached Doug Martsch, who had seemed kind of aloof. He was so far from aloof, it was awesome. We talked briefly about his pedals, and I thanked him for playing "Virginia Reel Around the Fountain." He thanked me for coming out to the show. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy.

Then the mountain-man guy started signing stuff, so I gave him the only piece of paper I had: my ticket stub. Then Doug also signed it, and he was again really nice. Then, feeling I should press my luck, I went over to the third guitarist and asked hiim to sign it. He did, and we had a quick conversation about his guitar, which had seemed really strange throughout the show because it seemed to have the body of a Telecaster, the neck and headstock of a Stratocaster, and the electronics of a Les Paul. Turns out it's a specially modified Tele Deluxe. Anyway, here's a picture of my ticket stub autographed by all three BtS guitarists:

The show was aweosme. My ears are still ringing, but it was totally worth it. I can't wait until they come back to Madison again, especially since a law-school connection has promised to get us backstage passes next time.

1 Comments

rpm said:

I think the mountain man guitarist is Brett Netson, not to be confused with bassist Brett Nelson. I think both of them have been in the band on and off since the beginning.

They are reliably awesome at this point. I highly recommend everyone catch their show.

September 30, 2009 10:33 AM

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