Another great show at the Cat's Cradle.

Jeff Mangum, and up to a half-dozen multi-instrumentalists, duplicated the raucous carnival sound of the records. There were singing saws, horns of all sizes, keyboards, a zanzithophone and an electronic bagpipe. Not a single electric guitar - an acoustic into a fuzz box does the same job. It all sounded fantastic.

"In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" was well-represented. And there were at least two songs from their first album, and two from each of the two EPs. Turns out there is NMH stuff that I don't own - how wonderful! It was a little unsettling to hear the Aeroplane songs out of order - that's a start-to-finish record for me. Still, this show had the unusual effect of making me want to immediately listen to the band's recorded music. Most shows fill me up on that band, so to speak; I usually avoid a band for a while after a show. But this one put all those songs into a new light; I had assumed were layered-up studio creations (and maybe they were), but seeing them done so well live with the full band, makes them seem a lot more alive than they were before. I want to hear them knowing that it's possible (though unlikely) that they were recorded with all of the people standing in the same room.

iPhone
Pix were prohibited, but I snuck one at the end. During Two Headed Boy, Pt2.

They were apparently making a recording of the show. A guy was manning a computer off to the side of the stage and it looked like he was giving Mangum advice about vocal levels. I was standing right in front of one of the mics aimed at the audience - if they put out a live record, maybe you'll hear me breathing!

It was the second of two sold-out shows in Chapel Hill. And not only was it a NMH show, it was Super Bowl Sunday, and the crowd really looked like the opposite of a crowd of football fans.

Elf Power opened - handy, because the two bands share a member (the zanzithophone and trumpet player) I have one of their records, but I didn't recognize anything from it. They were fun anyway.