Gomez - February 16, 2007 at the Commodore in Vancouver

My first and only other time seeing Gomez was in 1999 on their first swing through Vancouver at the Starfish Room. Wow, 1999. Before I had high speed internet and used to buy Q magazine and CMJ for the CD's so I could find new music. It was through one of those CMJ CD's that I first heard Gomez.
Ben Ottewell

I loved "Bring It On", and was really looking forward to the Starfish Room show but ended up being really disappointed because I could barely recogognize a song. They were a jam band, ala Grateful Dead or at least it seemed like it to me at the time. Although that really works for some people, I'm just not that type of girl so I thought that would be it for me and Gomez. Fast forward to the present, and I'm on myspace and happen upon "See The World" on someones player. "How We Operate" became my non stop favourite.
Tom Gray

Despite my lifelong love of music there are many, many reasons why I never tried to become a music critic or writer professionally. An example of one of those reasons is as follows. I thought that there were only two singers in Gomez. I thought the one I liked most just did my favourite and least favourite songs. There are actually three and they are pretty distinct.
Ian Ball

I may not have come to this show had it not been double billed with Ben Kweller, or if Deb had not been so excited about seeing Gomez. It turned out that I'd parked myself in front of my favourite singer, Ian Ball, and he played my favourite song, Hamoa Beach, second song in. He had a fender guitar with stickers of all sorts of life affirming thoughts and phrases. I'm assuming they are not meant ironically due to the lyrical content of his songs. Click here for my flickr photo to see what all the stickers say.


I was especially happy to see that they weren't a jam band. Anymore? Never really were? I don't know. I do know that about halfway through the set they started to loosen up and seem enjoy themselves. Ian seemed especially nervous and tense at first. This could be due to a fake set list that had been distrubuted as a joke.

This could also have been due to the monitors being located up high as opposed to on the stage where they usually are. I witnessed a little pantomine between Ian and Ben that seemed to indicate a wish to rip them off the ceiling and put them on the floor.

Highlights of the two hour show include an almost a capella version of "How We Operate" which was hauntingly gorgeous and a Happy Birthday song sung by the crowd to a crew member that was giddily silly.

Ben Kweller - February 16, 2007 at the Commodore in Vancouver

This was a double bill with Gomez so I'll break it up into two parts.
First up was Ben Kweller.

I've actually seen both Gomez and Ben Kweller before. Ben Kweller was about three years ago at Richards on Richards in support of "On My Way".

That was a great show. I love that album, and there was an element of danger due to the precarious balancing of the keyboard on the speaker. It felt like at any second that Kweller played the keyboard that he could tumble 4 feet to the floor.

This show was more stripped down with Kweller touring with just a bassist and drummer. Kweller arrived on stage with his eyes almost completely covered by the brim of his cap. The stage was set with a lovely Ben Kweller banner.

Highlights included a fun cover of an old timer Texas tune, the name of which I can't remember, but seemed to be on the set list as Chugg. (?) and an impromptu performance of the Nintendo Supermario game song.

Okay, real highlights were "Penny On The Train Track" and "I Gotta Move" from the new Ben Kweller self titled album and of course "Wasted And Ready". I was really sad he didn't play my favourite song from the new album, "This Is War".


One of the other things I love is when artists come out after the show to say hello and meet the fans. Happily, Kweller was amazingly nice while I rattled on and on as I am want to do.