acknowledgements

ran into a former student at the show last night where I found out he's a pretty big lurker at the hangout. he even went to the indie rock rave a little while back, and is well versed in all things stille. he pointed out that the love-in hype for last night's show was too much, from his perspective, but we were both more than overwhelmed by the resulting performances, for sure! I replied to his beef that I'll take a too-positive board over a too-negative one any day, and things have gotten a little sour lately anyways.

after making it in on a L-O-N-G lineup (and avoiding any directly confrontation related to rampant cutting), the Adorables brought their embassy residency party vibe and filled the Boat right up with it. things slowed down for the newly-minted-fabulous Laura Barrett, solo on a Kalimba, debuting her extremely recently recorded material. My only wish was shhhh! as the crowd was getting way too talky towards the end of her set-it was only like 20 minutes, people! shut the eff up!

then came the somewhat surreal experience of seeing Final Fantasy's video, as it was shot in the Boat. Owen himself was just dripping with talent as always, and as I've said here before on at least one occasion, the world is his to take over, if he wants to.

finally, Ninja High School exploded onto the stage and the floor literally was jumping up and down with its occupants above it. this was so nuts! NUTS! a thrilling end to an amazing night. up there in the 'shows of the year' file, madness.