Virtually Home

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea cover art. In the summer of 2004, I was at summer camp in Lawrence, Kansas, when my roommate turned to me and said, "Listen to this song, and tell me what you think it means." It was "Two-Headed Boy" and I thought it was the most beautiful and incomprehensible thing. Fast-forward ten years. On Monday night, I went to see Neutral Milk Hotel, who came out of hiding for a reunion tour. I wasn't sure what to expect. Their frontman, Jeff Mangum, has been on solo tours the last few years, but never anywhere I could get a ticket. They were doing a two-night stand at First Ave in Minneapolis, and tickets sold out in minutes, six months before the show. I bought one at a ridiculous markup on StubHub, and I hoped it would be worth it. Well, it was pretty spectacular. The show started really early (doors at 5:30, show at 7) on a Monday night, so I headed to the venue as soon as my classes were over, worried I wasn't going to be there...

Gregory Alan Isakov during his opening set. Josh Ritter is one of my perennial favorites, so when I heard he was doing a solo, acoustic tour, I jumped on buying tickets. Gregory Alan Isakov opened. I hadn't heard him before, but his singing and especially his guitar-playing are beautiful, and if you're a fan of Josh Ritter (or Turnpike Troubadours/John Fullbright or Alexi Murdoch), you should probably check him out. He said he usually plays with a band, and that the solo tour "terrified" him. He needn't have been scared, though, because his performance was great. Josh Ritter's "solo, acoustic" set turned out to be sort of neither thing. He brought two members of his band to accompany him, and they played primarily guitar and bass, though they played mandolin and various other instruments from time to time. There was no drumset, which is perhaps what they meant by "acoustic," though mostly bands don't tour with electric drumsets,...