While listening to "Sunflowers" from the Everything is Illuminated soundtrack, I started fiddling with some clips I have and ended up making an impromptu video.
So here it is:



I do enjoy the old film look...probably a bit too much :P
I went to see Beirut on Saturday, July 11 with Paw and another friend as part of the indoor Jazz Fest line up. It took place at the Metropolis and was a sold out show (when they played 2 years ago at Sala Rossa, it was also sold out. However, Sala has a 250 person capacity, whereas Metropolis has almost 10X that capacity. Way to go Beirut). Apparently, we were also in the company of Win Butler of the Arcade Fire.

The opening band was the Dodo's and I didn't know anything about them and hadn't bothered to look up any of their music prior to attending the show. They did not disappoint though - very good band! During one of the songs, they were joined by Zach and one other person from Beirut to play horns. Also, major props to the drummer who was sick and feverish (the singer said he was shivering in the morning).












Later, Beirut came on stage. As expected, they played a great show. Two things that make me really happy are accordions and horns and they were there in abundance :) The ukelele is also pretty cute :P I don't recall the entire setlist and I am also having some difficult tracking one down...but from what I remember, they played (in no particular order):
Nantes
The Shrew
Elephant Gun
La Javanaise from Serge Gainsbourg
A song in Italian
Postcards from Italy
A Sunday Smile
Scenic World
After the Curtain
Mount Wroclai
Cherbourg
Guyamas Sonara
My Night with the Prostitute from Marseille
La Llorona (for the encore)

I'm sure I'm missing some, but I probably should've written this right after the show and so my memory is a tad fuzzy. In anycase, I loved the entire show - but the highlights for me were "My night with the prostitute from Marseille", "Cherbourg" and "The Shrew". The first and last one, because they're from the new split EP. In addition, the first one, on the EP is largely electronic, but when they played it live, they managed to arrange it so that it could be played on the accordion and it was just a really cool arrangement.



The Shrew is my favorite on the "March of the Zapotec" side and I really enjoyed how in the second half of the song, everyone was clapping. It made it really festive.
As for Cherbourg, it's the song I've been playing most by them lately. So yay. I was also happy for Scenic World, as it's one of my favorite songs in general :)

The crowd was generally funny. At one point, someone held up a sign saying "Marry my Zach!" and he was playing the trumpet and tried not to smile. But he quirked his brows. In addition, someone in the crowd yelled "You're so sexy when you sweat!!!"

Here are some pics from the show, courtesy of Paw :D :













The only bummer about the night was the fact that it finished so early. This is due to the Jazz Fest programming, because another act was scheduled to play at midnight (Artist of the Year). So, they couldn't really stay and play more (their set was only about 1.5 hours at most).
Hopefully next time they come they'll be able to play longer. All in all though, it was a great show, we had great spots and I now have a new band tee-shirt :P