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We played “Hard-wound” pretty well to open last night’s set, but the smidge of “Pipeline” we start “Turn it Up” with went off the rails so badly I had to sit out for most of it. It seemed like collectively we weren’t sure which was the first bar after the intro, so the band didn’t negotiate the first chord change successfully. To my shame, I think I was the guiltiest party. Screwing up “Pipeline” is a double penalty. Everybody knows it, so errors are crushingly obvious, and it’s dead easy. Or should be, anyway.

It threw me badly off stride and the next few songs were riddled with stupid, stupid mistakes — I sharped C’s that should have been natural and vice versa.

The worst of it is, I can’t blame any of my mistakes on ol’ demon alkyhall, as I hadn’t touched a drop before we went on (although I’d bought a beer and brought it on stage). Perversely, after I had a few sips of Sloppiness Juice, the set went much, much better. I don’t think we’ve ever been tighter on “Teardrops” and the new harmony part on “Michelle” went over fine. (I can’t blame errors on stage sound either; Joe did a great job for us. Thanks, Joe.) Toward the end we had a fair mess of people dancing and carrying on (it was DK’s birthday party, basically, which accounts for some of the rowdiness). I’ve seldom been more sad to reach the end of a set.

And then there was tons of back-patting and glad-handing and people telling us how good we were (or how much we’ve improved) and all I could think about were “Pipeline,” the damned sharp C’s that shunta been, and the natural C’s that shoulda been sharped. Muh.

We were followed by OSB, who struck me as drinking deep from the Spin Doctors and Counting Crows cups* — mostly jump-around strummy stuff with a fierce backbeat (Doctors), but sometimes slowing down to get moody/maudlin. Most tunes (from what little of the words I could make out) included a good dollop of the Crows’ pretention, and all of ‘em had heaping helpings of the Crows’ inability to tell when a song should be fucking over. If I were producing them, my first move would be to recommend lopping at least 2 minutes from each number. The endless ending choruses of “Charlene,” (or “Marlene” or “Darlene”) were particularly painful.

Generally, of course, I hate this whole jammy-alterna genre fiercely (it occurred to me last night that visible toes are a pretty good indication I will dislike a band, as are WASPy boys with acoustic guitars). But my gripes about overlong songs and (presumably) insipid lyrics notwithstanding, I really couldn’t muster much ill will for ‘em. I definitely credit the singer, who had quite a capable — if not distinctive — voice. I hear so many singers who work hard at emulating their idols’ stylistic tics at the expense of carrying a tune or dealing with breathing and phrasing, and I give this guy much credit for not falling into that trap. But also I gotta credit the band for playing very cohesively. It still felt overly slick, essentially calculated, and bloodless. They were quite a chopsy bunch, but there wasn’t anything unusual going on melodically or harmonically. But they stayed out of each other’s sonic space for the most part, which few bands manage. And most tellingly, they made my feet move involuntarily when I wasn’t paying attention.

* TK said “Coldplay crossed with a jam band.” I think if I’d ever actually listened to Coldplay I might well agree.

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