Guster with Kishi Bashi at The Orpheum in Madison, Wisconsin 4/8/15

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Kishi Bashi is a guy with a violin, a loop pedal, and some weird poems. He does some beatboxing to make background rhythms for his violin, and one of his songs was an epic poem about a Genesis-style Creation...? It was a weird experience. Very interesting, but I'm not sure I could say I enjoyed it.

I hadn't seen Guster play in years. In high school, I photographed a concert at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa for the student section of the city paper -- my friend Sarah wrote a review. My photos are mysteriously uncredited in the Tulsa World archive, but I was particularly proud of the title of the article, which was "Guster: Four-Man Wrecking Machine".

Guster is great to see live. Their songs are often upbeat in tempo, even when sad. They write an excellent pop song. Three guitarists trade instruments and switch off covering the bass. Brian Rosenworcel plays the drums with his hands most of the time, and sometimes the keyboardist plays a second set with sticks to back him up.

The band is getting older. They described their career somewhat sarcastically as multi-generational. Frankly, every song from their new album was a low-point in an otherwise fabulously entertaining show. So, those are concerns.

But Ryan Miller, who most often sings lead vocals, is among the funniest frontmen I can think of, and the other guys get in on it, too. At one point, they improvised an entire song about Ryan's new thrift store shirt, which he was modeling. It was funnier than it sounds. Later, Ryan took advantage of the audience's propensity to bring pingpong balls, insisting that someone throw a pingpong ball into his mouth before the show could go on. It took a surprisingly (almost agonizingly) long time to accomplish, even with Ryan actively trying to catch one, but everyone was pretty into it. I laughed pretty hard.

Every song from Keep It Together was my favorite. My brother gave me the album for my 14th birthday, and since we were at the show together and far from home, the whole thing was a giant exercise in nostalgia. When the band sang "Remember when you were fourteen?" that's exactly what I was remembering. How convenient!

"Ramona" made the encore. It was lovely for me, but the lyrics ("Ramona, you're Miss Oklahoma, and you miss Oklahoma") didn't have quite the same impact in Wisconsin as back home.

All in all, a good show -- check out Guster if you can.

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