why the man standing in front of me last night is my new hero

I have been a Guster fan since the first time I heard them - summer 1998. I introduced them to my sister Becky and she was hooked immediately as well. We saw our first live gig in spring 1999. Since then, we've seen Guster nearly every time they've been in the Denver area. Even after Becky joined the Peace Corps in 2003, she came home for a family wedding in September 2004 and as luck would have it Guster played Denver in the two week span that she was home. However, due to the remainder of her Peace Corps service and her current work/school schedule, that was the last time we've seen them. Yeah, until last night, I hadn't seen a Guster live show in over two years... a first for me since that very first gig. But last night's show was definitely worth the wait.

We got to the Ogden and it was packed. Not to mention about 2000 degrees. We decided to try the balcony first to see if we could get a good view. Nope. The balcony was insane. And even hotter than downstairs. We went back down and found spots just two rows back from the soundboard. Unfortunately, everyone right behind the soundboard was incredibly tall. But Becky had a decent view, and as long as the couple in front of me weren't making out (a rather frequent occurence I'm afraid), I could see right between their shoulders. Plus the bar was right behind us... :)

Rodrigo y Gabriela opened the show. I like them, they are extremely talented... but I tend to lose interest when there are no lyrics involved. I started to get antsy at about the 45 minute mark of their set, but figured they would be done at any minute. They did bring me back into the set with a rendition of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here - they played and the entire theater sang the words. It was really amazing. And would have been a great way to end the evening, but they kept going.... and going... In all, they played an hour long set and then came out for a 15 minute encore. Completely ridiculous for an opener if you ask me. Even when we saw Guster "co-headlining" with John Mayer, Guster barely got an hour to play. And John Mayer... well he pretty much sucked.

The other irritating thing that happened was that right at the end of the opening set, a group of four very drunk, very annoying kids came down and pushed their way into our space. One of the guys was about 6 1/2 feet tall and settled right in front of us. Luckily Becky has been working on her confrontational skills and told him that he was blocking our view. He moved behind me, but it was still really crowded and they were still really annoying. There was a couple right behind the soundboard and just to our left who seemed to be HUGE Rodrigo y Gabriela fans, and we were hoping that they were going to leave after the opening set. They didn't though....

Here's Guster's set... I'm fairly certain I got all the songs, but as for the song order... ummmm... very fuzzy. I know they opened with The Captain, I'm relatively sure that next was What You Wish For, I know the third song was Satellite, I know they closed the regular set with Fa Fa, and I'm pretty certain on the encore. Other than that, there's no real rhyme or reason here:

The Captain
What You Wish For
Satellite
...
Manifest Destiny
One Man Wrecking Machine
Ruby Falls
Hang On
Demons
Airport Song
Amsterdam
Ramona
Come Downstairs And Say Hello
Barrel Of A Gun
Either Way
Fa Fa
...
C'mon
Happier
Jesus On The Radio

So... we kept watching the couple in front of us, because they really didn't seem to be too much into Guster. We speculated that they were "giving Guster a chance" and still hoping that they would leave, and were completely on our guard to take over the spot. But, once Satellite started the guy was actually singing along. Damn. In the meantime, drunk annoying people started to dance, and the tall guy was stepping on Becky's toes and hitting her repeatedly with his freakishly long arms. She finally asked them to stop, and they responded with "dance with us, it's Guster!". Becky informed them that she was trying to dance, but they were all up in her space. lol.

Then... it happened. The fourth song started, and we had totally called it on the couple in front of us. Just when Becky was about to completely lose it with the assholes next to her, the man in front of me tapped my arm and motioned for us to come and take their spaces. They were leaving! I don't know if he sensed that we were huge Guster fans, or that we were dealing with the idiots next to us, or what, but we were stoked that they gave us their spots. We had a perfect view of Guster, stage Adam, and no longer had to stand next to drunken long-armed asshats. The rest of the show was absolutely magnificent.

There are many reasons that I love Guster, and I was reminded last night of just how much I've missed seeing them live over the past couple of months. For example:

Ryan (after The Captain): "We've been onstage for less than 5 minutes, and already I'm enveloped in a cloud of pot smoke. You are definitely living up to your reputation, Colorado."

They played a lot of older songs last night, and Brian played hand percussion for all of those older songs + The Captain. I'd have to say that he spent the majority of the evening on hand percussions, easily. Awesome.

Adam plays the trumpet. And keyboards. Ryan plays the harmonica. And keyboards. Joe plays the banjo. Actually, Joe plays everything.

Before the last song of the regular set, Ryan introduced Rodrigo y Gabriela (they were a huge hit with the crowd). All band members looked offstage as if Rod & Gab were going to join them. Then Ryan admitted that it wasn't going to happen, but it would've been great. lol. Then he said he was being kind of a dick, so he wanted us all to boo and hiss as loud as we could after the last song and they would come out for an encore. I have never heard people boo so loudly for an encore in my life.

They played C'mon for the first encore, and at the part that goes "so let's rise, dye our hair, and change our names", Ryan added "fuckers". And then proceeded to laugh through the next few lines.

After Happier, (I think this was the next to last song), the guys were huddled onstage, apparently discussing what to do next. Well, everyone started booing again. Ryan stepped to the mic and said "Thanks for being assholes. I guess we'll play one more song."

The last number was an acoustic, unplugged Jesus On The Radio, which was beautiful. But here's something I don't understand... Ryan asked for NO audience participation while they were off-mic, and for us to just be quiet for a minute and a half. What I don't understand is why people can't fucking be quiet for 90 seconds. It's 90 seconds. The drunken group that we'd left behind needed no less than 7 dirty looks to finally shut the fuck up. Seriously. It's a minute and a half. Shut up.

I love Guster so much.