I really love this. It’s funny, you don’t know what you will find inspirational or how something will affect you. The look of surprise on his face when everyone is singing, very cool.

Saturday was getting up and going to the Farmers’ Market (my friend Gund said ‘what kind of farmer didja get?’ when I got home). I was slightly giddy with the prospect of local fresh organic vegetables. I got some rabe, fresh walnuts, shallots, oyster mushrooms, and huckleberry jam. O and awesome radishes that aren’t sharp at all. mmmm.

Saturday night we went to see Rilo Kiley. It was a great show – neither Brian or I thought they could live up to their albums, and of course they did. We got great seats at the Roseland – the people who drink sit upstairs, and we got the front row, so we had a great view of the stage and of the crowd. Not to mention a place to put our MirrorPonds.

Whispertown2000 opened for them and Michael Runnion before that. Can’t say I liked Michael Runnion. Brian said he’s a good guitarist but his music wasn’t doing much for me and he’s not the greatest showman yet. Think he’ll probably improve with time, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see him.

Whispertown2000 on the other hand was soooo good. The women singers were really awesome – their voices, their showmanship, their clothes. Two guys too, one on drums, one on guitar. By the end of the show, everyone had played the drums except the leadsinger. hehe. Brian said with some amazement, you know, I think that’s the only time I’ve ever seen someone play drums and guitar at the same time. I looked up and yeah, wow, that’s got to be hard, hehe. Really a fun show, if they come through again, I will make a point of seeing them. I’m going to download the album from iTunes. O, and there was a kazoo! And a jamboree!

Rilo Kiley managed to play every single song I love and more. Jenny Lewis is a rockstar and lives up to every expectation of that. She was fun to watch, gracious to the crowd, reacted well when some idiot whipped jewelry at her head and put on an amazing show.

What I didn’t expect was that I’d be blown away by Blake Sennett as well. I came away a huge fan. His guitars were great, he can really play but he’s also awesome to watch. He gets what it takes to put on a show. I should have written this Saturday night because I know there’s a ton more I wanted to write about him, but ah well. They had huge balloons in the middle of the show, full of gold confetti that the crowd played beachball with until they popped, showering everyone with gold.

We decided they also have *the* hardest working roadie of all time – he was constantly fixing things, switching guitars, tossing the balloons back out to the crowd (wtf, front row? hit it back, NOT at the band). There’s no way they pay him enough :)

Another Cynthia‘s CD release party last night was fun. It was at Tonic, which is walking distance for us. We didn’t think we had enough time to walk because both Brian and I worked pretty late, but they went on pretty late so we probably could have walked.

If you haven’t heard them yet, go check them out on their myspace page. On their new album (which they have up there for download currently), I’m particularly fond of 3 a.m.

New Model Army is playing tonight at Mt Tabor Legacy, but I just found out about it last night, and we have neighbors coming over for a cook-out. I’ve been a New Model Army fan since the early 90s, so it is pretty tempting.

We thought about going out to it after, making it three nights in a row we saw awesome music, but it would probably be about a $50 night after tickets and drinks and I’d rather spend it when everyone gets here this week.

Yay! There are no longer people downstairs pounding loudly, breaking my stuff, tracking mud everywhere in our house and generally invading our privacy daily! I am starting to adjust.

Gearing up for visits from Dean and Michele and Jessica and Steve next week and trying to figure out what each of them would like the most about Portland and Oregon so that I can take them there. I am sure my flickr pool with be full of pictures from all my standard haunts :)

Last night, Brian took a brief break from work (he’s been putting in long hours again) and we wandered over to Chapel Pub for dinner (a McMenamins place) where Jenny Conlee from the Decemberists was playing on the organ maybe 10 feet away from us. She’s awesome, and the music she chose to play on the organ was equally awesome. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida made me laugh when she started playing it. Fun night. We will have to check out the Florida Room’s Blasphemous Brunch one of these days, it was just across the street.