Friday, February 20, 2009

The Sea and Cake @ The MOCAD, 2/13/09

The Sea and Cake
I had originally planned on posting this only a couple days after the concert, but then I just totally forgot about it. My best bud Travis' post this week about his recent experience seeing Ben Folds live inspired me to just go ahead and still do it.

So, last Friday I had the opportunity to see my newly positioned second favorite band, The Sea and Cake, at an art opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD). I had planned to recall the entire set list for the night (not necessarily in order), and I totally blew it by waiting too long to post this. However, I will try to recall their set to the best of my abilities.

First off, the band was incredibly tight. This was not very surprising as they were pretty much perfect when I saw them at the Magic Stick back in October of 2007. Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt both just did their thang with their guitars, not being too showy, displaying just the right amount of coolness. Of course Prekop's voice was smooth as hell. John McEntire banged the shit out of his drums amazingly. That dude is just sick. And once again, bassist Eric Claridge proved to me that he might be the most crucial member of the band. He knows when to hold it down and keep everyone together and when to let loose and wail. Seasoned professionals are what they are.

The set list was great. They played most of their newest record, Car Alarm. It was exciting to see some of my top jams from the record such as "A Fuller Moon," "On a Letter" and "Window Sills." "Weekend" was especially awesome. 2007's Everybody was represented well thanks to splendid performances of "Middlenight," "Coconut" and "Exact to Me." I was pretty bummed they didn't play "Crossing Line," but I guess that's okay. The band also highlighted some old favorites, the best of which were "Parasol," "The Biz," "Sporting Life," and "Midtown." All of this plus several others from Car Alarm, some oldies and a few songs I didn't recognize (one in particular that McEntire completely dominated) in an hour-and-a-half set that included a four song encore. They must have been feeling generous.

Great set guys! You are truly fantastic both on record and live.

2 comments:

Joel said...

I saw them in Cambridge, MA in November and posted what I remembered of the setlist the next day here. Amazing show!! My ABSOLUTE favorite band for many years.

Quillen said...

Man, it looked like you got to see them play a REAL long set.