i'll trust as far as i can spit

The New Amsterdams at the El Mocambo last night started off the first of three straight nights of concerts for me. Both the opening acts were kind of bad, so Tricia and I left the venue, got hot chocolates, a poutine, went back to El Mocambo and played free foosball inside. After that, we made our way inside the crowd towards the front. The New Amsterdams hit the stage with “Hover Near Fame”, which I thought was a great opening track. Throughout the show, the band was funny and very interactive with the audience. During the encore, Matthew Pryor actually took requests from the audience and played a few old favorites: “Proceed With Caution”, “All Ears”, and “My Old Man Had A Pistol”. This show was slightly different than the one I attended a few of years ago. Well, mostly just the instrumentations: missing are a piano and an electric bass; while new additions included a cello and a slide guitar. Result: a more folk/country sound. Since the show was 19+, there were quite a few drunks, aka people yelling random crap at the band. There was this guy, who I swear was also in the last New Amsterdams concert, that kept yelling a bunch of shit out... it was actually funny at times, but mostly very annoying. It was only funny because the band actually paid attention to the guy and they were kind of interacting through the show. The guy kept yelling random Get Up Kids songs hoping the band would play them. So finally, Pryor said, “dude, no Get Up Kids songs, the band broke up, and if you missed it, too bad!” Later, during a quiet song, the guy yelled “turn down the bass!” Pryor replied with “turn down the heckler!” in which the audience responsed with the loudest applause and cheers. Good times! Oh, I also bought this children’s CD that Matthew Pryor made called If You Ever See An Owl… According to the merch guy (who was like the nicest merch guy ever… I actually had a whole conversation with him and he gave me four New Amsterdams buttons), the CD is probably not coming out till September because there is no label to distribute it yet. Anyways, here’s my favorite song on the disc: “We Can All Get Along With Dinosaurs” ***file has expired, reload upon request, enjoy!

go here to see pictures from the show