Fuck Yeah Damien Jurado

Tonight I got to see Damien at Satellite in L.A. It was my second time seeing him, the first being at Club Congress in Tucson, back in 2009. That show was amazing, and I got to experience it with two of my closest friends. This show was equally as awesome, and I had the company of the awesomely cool Matt Mugford.

The night started out with Jezebel, a really cool band from Australia. When their set was over, I was heading to the bar to get some water, when I noticed Sarah Jurado at the merch table. I went over, just to say hi and tell her how awesome her pics are (if you haven’t seen them, she has a tumblr, so check it out), and she was so incredibly nice! I told her I follow her on Tumblr, and she even knew who I was (which is what is awesome about Tumblr. It can feel like a really small intimate community, even when you’re following people in another city, state, or country). The buttons you see above were a gift from her, and I can’t thank her enough! They are the Saint Bartlett buttons, and my favorite one has what looks like a hotel room on it, and one of my favorite lyrics from Saint Bartlett - “You can come back when you need”, off of the song Throwing Your Voice (I actually have a story about Saint Bartlett, but I will save that for another post). I love that lyric and have pasted it on so many things, it’s ridiculous. How universal is that? (I also love the lyric “Michael you have a voice, learn to lie” from the same song).

When Damien came on, I was kind of eyeing things because there was some room at the front of the stage, and in Tucson we sat down Indian style on the floor to watch the show. As I was mulling it over, a young couple apparently had the same idea, so I followed suit. It was awesome. We were, essentially, front row, no one in front of us, no one’s head to have to look over. Just sat there and watched Damien play and enjoyed a very intimate set (or, at least, what felt intimate to me. I don’t know how it was for the people standing). Damien played a lot of new material, the most interesting of which was the closing song that seemed to start out as an extremely stark and ominous version of Ghost of David, and evolved into a show piece of emotion and intensity, the kind of thing you want so bad from a live show - For a performer to lose himself in the performance and not just be going through the motions. I’m hoping there may be a recorded version of this somewhere that ends up as a b-side or something.

Normally, at a show this small, after it was over, I would be one of those guys going up to the artist and shaking their hand and giving them the “Great job”, but, I tried doing that in Tucson and, literally, choked up to the point where I almost broke out in tears, so… Decided it may be best to just leave things as they were - An awesome show by an awesome artist. What more can you ask for?

And, if you read this Sarah - You Rock!