The Apples in Stereo @ 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C. [9/19/07]

As you probably figured out from my post last night, I was at the Apples in Stereo show at the 9:30 Club. I almost didn't make it to the Apples' set, but I grabbed a beer, steeled myself to make it through the 9pm-9:45pm period, and survived. Yay me.

I've been a big fan of the Apples' latest album, New Magnetic Wonder, since it came out early this year. I actually first fell in love with a lot of the album when I caught the band's CMJ appearance last fall, where they previewed a number of songs from the disc. Thankfully, the songs sound just as good now as they did then (just a little louder, considering that the CMJ show was acoustic).

The band's set drew primarily from the new album, with a few older classics thrown in for good measure ("The Rainbow", "Strawberryfire", etc.). I was actually pretty pleasantly surprised how familiar the crowd seemed with the older material. I always kind of assumed that older Apples was a very niche thing (admittedly, I only got into them a couple of years ago), but I was clearly wrong. One time I'm happy to be wrong.

Oh, and you can hear the set for yourself here.

Some Apples pics:



As I mentioned yesterday, the evening's opening act was the excellent Julie Ocean. This was the second time I've seen them, and they were great. A lot of the sound issues from their Black Cat show were resolved by the 9:30 Club's acoustics, and they sounded like a band that ought to be playing the 9:30 Club a lot more in the future. Can't wait to get an album from these guys at some point.



And of course there was Hugo "Hurley" Reyes Aqueduct.