Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin @ The Blue Note, 04/12/08

It was in the air. There was no denying it. It was chatted over in the crowd and if you watched carefully you could see it on the band's faces: 6.2. And the worst part is that you probably know exactly what I'm referring to.

As if to confirm any lingering suspicions, lead singer John Robert Cardwell openly addressed Friday's review at the end of the set, introducing "Oceanographer" by simply quipping, "Pitchfork hates this song." Indeed, staff writer Ian Cohen described the song in predictably disdainful language, particularly targeting the song's signature rhyme scheme (ocean-ographer, top-ographer, sten-ographer, you get the point-ographer) with little tact. But while most of the crowd echoed the band's sentiment, with some audience members chanting things that won't be printed here, the fact that a band would address a review - any review, let alone that one - from the stage certainly has to beg a question or three.

Namely, how much credence will Pitchfork be allowed? Enough to overshadow an otherwise decent show? Enough to exert the equivalent of mind control over that vapid cesspool of "culture" we call "the blogosphere"? Enough to warrant everything I've just written? Apparently so. Yes, Pershing is a disappointingly unexceptional sophomore effort - hopefully nothing more than a "slump," as they say - but that's beside the point until we finally start growing our own opinions.

In other news, they didn't cover Nirvana. And that's confetti you see above, which materialized sometime around the climax of "Anne Elephant." Had to be there.

(click to enlarge)

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Setlist
Glue Girls
Think I Wanna Die
Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Carol King cover)
Pangea
HEERS
Some Constellation (?)
Oregon Girl
Boring Fountain
House Fire
Modern Mystery
The Beach Song
Half-Awake (Deb)
You Could Write a Book
Dead Right
Lower the Gas Prices, Howard Johnson
Oceanographer
(Encore)
I Am Warm and Powerful
Anne Elephant

[photos and review by Zach Noland]