The Apples In Stereo @ Bowery Ballroom [2/15/07]

Don't ask me how it happened, but prior to last night's Apples in Stereo show at Bowery Ballroom, it had been exactly two months since I had last been to a live show. Between work, travel and other obligations, I was forced to skip a number of shows in December and January (Hold Steady, The Dears, Damien Rice/Glen Hansard, etc.). Before I knew it, two months went by without a show. I'm fairly sure that this is the longest stretch I've gone without a show in the nearly 11 years that I've lived in New York. I don't intend for it to happen again, regardless of where I live.

Maybe it was the fact that I hadn't seen live music in a while, but from the very first song, I fell in love with the opening band, Caspar and the Cookies. Unfortunately, as the second, third and fourth songs wore on, I very quickly fell out of love. And then love turned to active dislike. What started as a really good Byrds/Pernice Brothers/whatever-influence set -- well, one song at least -- devolved into a pretty bad wanna-be Elephant 6 set which simply didn't work. As I texted a friend during the show, I don't think I've ever liked the first song of an opener's set so much only to have the rest of the band's songs be awful. Guess there's a first for everything. Or, as I said, maybe my ears were just happy to hear that first song after a 2-month layoff.

As for the Apples in Stereo, they were pretty great. Nothing earth-shattering, but an energetic, fun set filled largely with songs off of the new album, New Magnetic Wonder, and a bunch of the usual suspects from their older catalog ("Go", "The Rainbow"). The crowd was at or near capacity despite that most of the city's hipster-ati were seeing (or trying to see) the Arcade Fire. And, amazingly, there was actually a patch of people dancing and bouncing around throughout the set, which is more and more rare at New York shows these days. While I'm not usually a fan of dancing at shows, if you can't dance to the Apples, who can you dance to?