Music & Memories: Guster

Guster is, hands down, my favorite band. I loved them the second I first heard them, and I haven't stopped in the fifteen years since. As a result of listening to them constantly for so long and having seen them live a number of times, I have about a million vivid memories that come flashing back to me when I hear a lot of their music. Some of them are really awesome memories - like hearing Parachute, when all I can see in my mind's eye is the three of them standing on stage at The Bayou in Georgetown on an October night in 1997, my friend Christina standing next to me, and the crowd mesmerized while the dude running the lights (a fellow Catholic student!) put on a hell of a show -  and some of them are totally random and uninteresting – like hearing Architects & Engineers and picturing the barren parking lot at the Wollaston T stop, which I was walking across the first time I heard it. I added new memories this time around, thanks to Pete’s resolution to see more live music this year. J The picture above? Where they were standing at the edge of the stage ten feet from my face (did I forget to mention that we had awesome seats)? Yeah, that’s going to be in my head every time I hear Jesus on the Radio.

I was skeptical when I bought these concert tickets, because the tour was billed a “night of acoustic music and comedy” I was totally on board with the acoustic music, but I was not excited about the comedy. I am NOT a standup comedy fan, although I think that may have made Pete a bit more willing to go to this show with me so I should probably have been happy about it. It turns out that I had nothing to worry about – the opening act was a very green comedian from LA who was okay. Then Jeff Garlin (who you may know from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Or Daddy Day Care.) came out. And he was HILARIOUS. I loved him, I laughed the whole time, and I was happy to see him come back later in the show.

After my fears of hating the opening act were not realized, I was even more psyched when Guster  came out…with a violinist and a cellist, who were ridiculously amazing. The idea was that it’s a very chill, intimate show. They played a set with the strings, then the ladies left and Garlin came back out to emcee the “weird part of the show”, as Ryan called it – requests submitted online prior to the show, requests from the audience, requests from twitter. It was hilarious when someone requested a song off one of their early albums and they couldn’t guarantee that they remembered it. After finally remembering how it started, they promised to play as much of it as they could until they couldn’t anymore. I’m pretty sure I won’t listen to Love For Me again without picturing Adam and Ryan laughing at each other as they tried to play that song. After the “weird” (and also hilarious) part of the show, we traded Garlin for the strings once more, and they played another set that was equally awesome.

Am I the only one that has such vivid memories attached to music? It’s almost overwhelming sometimes to hear certain songs!