Not on the Guest List

On this day: Islands at Loveland

So I was too busy (read: lazy) to do this yesterday ie I put it off to the last second, then decided I was still going to head down to the Tube at midnight to go get Sweaty Wet/Dirty Damp, and I did - to a soundtrack of 'Blow the Whistle', 'Pop the Glock' and some Justice with my alcohol on the house (thank you considerate unknown bartender!)
So I'll back date this later on to read like it was actually written yesterday. Back-dated.

On this day. . . May 8th 2006.

My friend Ted and I met up with Sam and Renee at the door to Loveland on May 8th 2006.  Islands hadn't brought their guest list down yet, and even though Sam is way better friends with the band (having toured with them and roomed with them in London once) I was the only one permited to go upstairs to rip it out of their hands.  One of the Chow brothers was finishing it up - scrawling my name on a luggage tag - oh how thrifty.  Jamie was so cute when he found out Sam was waiting at door - running down with unbridled enthusiasm.  Cue hugs.
We went upstairs, opened beers and had a fake dance off.
Here is Jamie doing his best Savion Glover:

Patrick laughs in the background

For the photos, they made Sam and Busdriver honorary members.  For the polaroids, Jamie didn't have one taken.  His excuse was, "I'm not in the band."
I brushed it off as a joke, but a few days later it was announced he was leaving the band.

So of the tiny polaroids that grace this site's header, now you know when the Islands ones were taken.

I am in lust with the Lloyd Center dollar store!! - where I scored the goggles.

Jim and I spent the entirety of Cadence Weapon's set upstairs talking about the UK and the "no future" reality that plagues a lot of the cities.  A couple weeks later it was announced he wouldn't be joining them on their Euro jaunt.

Island's set was amazing!  A huge heckling situation broke out when Nick chose the wrong head to snatch a hat off of.  For eight songs, they yelled back and forth at each other, until Nick bargained with him that he would give back the hat if the guy left.  Agreed.

Busdriver, Cadence Weapon (decked out in a Test Icicles T-shirt and who I mentioned in my April podcast) guested along with another MC on 'Where There's a Will, There's a Whalebone'.

'The Gorilla Is For Sand Racing' Cadence Weapon MP3

*Note that this track doesn't feature his rhyming, but is a super cool mix - especially with one minute left to go.

Then bass from another concert going on overpowered their set entirely, so they just improvised/jammed over the bass lines for a few songs.  Yes!!!!

I wrote out their set list for the night.  Ooohh and ahhh at my clear and concise hand-writing:

After the show when we were all deciding what to do after, Nick asked me and Sam how we met and I was too wimpy to admit it was through shooting them for German Vice (how chic is the photo credit? "Von" :).  I hated bringing up Test Icicles since the experience seemed to have destroyed Sam, so I was like "London?  Berlin?" I think it was obvious that I knew, but I couldn't drop the guessing game.  Geek!

Ted took this polaroid of me that night holding the polaroids I had just taken of Islands.

Grant couldn't believe it was me because I uh, look like a "normal" person for once.  You know, as opposed to the over-enthusiastic obsessive Winco lover type of person I typically am - Example 1, or someone who occassionally carries on conversation with photos on the wall at Jack in the Box.

Anyway, one of the photos I shot that night went on to run as a preview of their next PDX show in November in the Mercury - thanks to Ezra AC!

A whole lot of Islands going on

So it took me like forever to blog about the Islands show at Disjecta last week-because I already reviewed it for Pitchfork. However, that review was crazy short (and written at 4am) so I'm gonna go into the opening acts and all that here.
This post could have easily been titled "I love me some Islands" as I certainly do! My photo was used to preview them in the Portland Mercury as seen below. I took it last time they were in Portland, which I will eventually blog about in an "On this Day" post.

Subtitle was first to take the stage at Disjecta that Tuesday night, overcoming a burned out laptop to deliver his set via i-pod. Even with a crowd still filling in, he successfully coerced couples into waltzing for a few bars of a track-yes actual waltzing.

Next was Blueprint who elicited a more enthusiastic response having everyone salute him with the middle finger, hold up their cell phone, count aloud, and participate in chants of Maury Povich during different songs made up of his socially aware lyrics.  The highlight of his set came in the form of his rhyming over Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean".  Not only was it one of his stronger numbers, the choruses also induced an audience wide sing-along.

So anyway, they had string holders-yes string holders-seperating the over 21s who chose to drink from the all agers. It looked pretty lame them using a string, as they at least had orange netting at the Islands show in Seattle.

Islands lineup was tres different than the last time they came through town and played at the now closed Loveland. First, the best of the best Jim Guthrie is STILL gone (I thought he was only sitting out their Euro tour) and Nick's girlfriend Kate Perkins wasn't singing (not to mention J'aime Tambeur's expected absence-duh). They also changed their stage positioning-the Chow brothers switching sides with bass-clarinetist Patrick Gregoire.

It was the best I've seen Islands yet! They SO reminded me of Les Savy Fav with their multitude fo props for no reason. They opened with 'Humans' and then swiftly launched into 'Volcanoes'.
There were a few shouts for Patrick (surprisingly not from me haha) and Nick continued to take items from audience members. It was actually funny because he snatched some hipster sunglasses from this one kid (too young to already have an ironic hipster moustache in my opinion) and it turned out to be the same kid he snatched striped sunglasses off last time.

It appears they opened or at least didn't close with 'Swans' at shows on the rest of their tour, but that was their encore for Portland, and a very fitting one at that.

Read my Pitchfork review for more and look at my million photos of the gig

'Where There's a Will There's a Whalebone' Islands MP3

*I totally wanted my Pitchfork review to be the first not to mention the Unicorns as I know Nick hates it and knew he'd read the review. However, the editorial team saw otherwise :) No worries-such a THRILL