I saw Obits about six months ago and thought they were even better this time. The sound on the mainstage seemed a little off but they put on a great performance… a little snarlier and punkier than the last time. I’m a big fan of old dudes rocking hard and I have been listening to Obits off and on this year and like them a lot. I still don’t think they are quite as good as Hot Snakes but they might be approaching the same level.

I expected Obits to be good and they delivered. But I had pretty low expectations for Pinback. I went through a Pinback phase a few years back (and I really love the album Summer in Abbadon) but I kind of lost interest in them over time. I tried to see them one or twice and never quite made it, but I downloaded some live stuff by them and found it pretty weak. Somehow I picked up the idea that Pinback were just not a very good live band. I still liked their music but gradually lost most interest in ever seeing them live.

But I was not gonna miss them once I already paid for the ticket. And I was impressed! They sounded pretty great. For all the times I listened to Abbadon and the lesser amount of time I’ve listened to other stuff by them, I never had a clear sense that Rob Crow and Armistead Smith were such equal partners in the singing and frontmanship; I’d always thought Crow was the main dude. So I was startled to find that I couldn’t figure out which one he was… their voices are very similar. (Aside: though I wouldn’t recognize him, I saw Rob Crow perform once before, many eons ago, when Physics played at the Kalorama House… ancient history indeed.)

Here they are doing “Sender”:

I do feel that Pinback is a little too pretty, a little too restrained. To a certain extent, it’s indie rock-lite, background make-out music for hipsters. But I still kinda love it. And they wrote one of my all-time favorite lyrics, as I’ve mentioned before, with “I miss you, not in a Slint way, but I miss you.” After they sang that bit (from “A.F.K.”) I was ready to leave, satisfied. Thanks, Pinback! Sorry I doubted you! I will have to figure out what live stuff of theirs I downloaded in the past and replace it with something new.

Here’s a Pinback photo via last.fm/flickr: