We saw Aimee Mann in Durham, over the weekend.

I don't actually own any of her albums. Somehow, I just know all these Aimee Mann songs from the atmosphere or whatever. Plus, I thought my wife had all Mann's albums, so I never bothered to buy any myself. But it turns out she doesn't have any, either. She says she's going to buy them all, now.

Even though I could only see the bass player most of the time (who was too loud and out of tune for the first couple of songs), the show was really good. Mann is a great singer and songwriter, and delivers her songs effortlessly.

She brought along an opening act, Jonathan Coulton, who I previously knew as the guy who wrote the fantastic closing song for Portal and as the musica host on NPR's "Tell Me Another". So, I was surprised to see him opening for Aimee Mann. But, it turns out that he was a co-writer on her new album, and is a fantastic songwriter (and guitar player and singer!) in his own right - mostly funny stuff. The two of them did several songs together, both during his set and hers.

She closed with "Voices Carry", which she introduced with a shout-out to the Women's March.

We saw her at the same venue, many years ago. There was a snow storm and we were new to the area and didn't know that snow is the end of the world. So, there were maybe 100 people in this big old theater and just her and her guitar.