Concert Review: Built to Spill

After 15 years of waiting for an opportunity to see Built to Spill, last night's concert at the Velvet Jones in Santa Barbara left me speechless. I didn't even know what to say to my friends (beyond mindless one syllable words like "Wow!"). I stood there dumbfounded while Doug Martsch slowly packed up his gear, pausing intermittently to chat with a fan as we filed out. A few moments later I found myself thanking him for a great show, but such sentiments were radically understated...the show was amazing.

A live performance by Built to Spill is one of the loudest, most overwhelming experiences a concert goer can enjoy. It is incredible how a band who hardly ever moves more than is necessary to play their instruments and maintains somber facial expressions to elicit such excitement and rapturous attention from a packed house audience. It's not like they say much between songs to keep the audience entertained either; all we received in the way of spoken words from Doug was a somber "Thanks."

No, the sole force engaging the crowd is the sound that Built to Spill produces. Their music is brilliantly written, with no doubt that the band could reproduce every nuance at a concert. But instead of doing so, they improvise; every song is slightly different due to spontaneous embellishments and (frequently) drawn out bridges and outros. What is more, Built to Spill fulfilled every aspect of this description for an hour and a half, took a less-than-five minute break, and played a half hour encore. What a show!

It is undoubtably obvious that the best part of the show was the overall tone and scope of performance, but certain songs did make for particularly stellar moments. My favorites were when Built to Spill played "Randy Describes Eternity," "Carry the Zero," and "Car" (during which someone lit up a joint right when Doug sang "I wanna see it when you get stoned on a clouded breezy desert afternoon." Does this happen at every show?) Other old tracks I was somewhat surprised to hear were "Stab" and "Nowhere, Nothing Fuck Up." There were newer tracks also, some from You in Reverse, undoubtedly others from the upcoming There is No Enemy (Out Oct. 6).

Awesome, awesome show.