Band of Horses @ the Park Tavern

One of the greatest things about living in this city is that there are constantly free events all over the place, especially in Piedmont Park. Piedmont Park is kind of like Central Park, except that it isn't surrounded by high rises and big city grossness, but instead by a really beautiful city that constantly has gorgeous weather and basically totally rocks. In the summers, Screen on the Green draws several hundred people every week, and on Sundays, the local "alternative" radio station (albeit kinda ew) hosts free shows at a tavern on the southern edge of the park. These shows usually suck. In fact, tonight's was the first I actually wanted to go to in a few years, but it was pretty awesome and totally made up for the fact that the other show I really wanted to see was cancelled earlier in the week.

Awesome because not a lot of people showed up. Awesome because there were no children. Awesome because most of the hipsters stayed home. Awesome because I got to see one of my favorite bands rock out as if they were a country band from South Carolina (because I guess they thought Georgians would be into that?). It was maybe a little bit not awesome getting stepped on quiet so much by the frat boy bros with popped collars, but everything else seriously made up for it.

They played about half of the songs from Everything All the Time and about 75% of Cease to Begin. I'm still deciding how I feel about the latter, because its so much more positive/upbeat than the former. Hearing songs like "Is there a Ghost," "Ode to LRC," and "Marry Song" played live may have tipped the balance a little bit, though I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the sad drama of Everything All the Time. I was a little bit sad that they didn't play "St. Augustine" (and because they didn't play an encore) but hearing "Monsters" live was probably the best part of my whole night. Sigh. I wish I had taken my camera because I was so close to the front.

This dude, Tyler Ramsey is touring with them. He's pretty okay, in a super folksy kinda way. And he played with the band which was cool because they were all so bearded and flanneled.