Mates of State played a free show at Castle Clinton on Thursday night. They struck a good balance between songs from the new album and older material. In fact, it was exactly half and half. By my count, they played 8 songs from the new album “Bring It Back”, 5 from their last album “Team Boo”, 2 from “My Solo Project’ and 1 song from the 2004 EP “All Day”. It was a very solid and fluent set; 16 songs in about 70 minutes and they never gave us time to finish applauding before jumping into the next tune. The new songs sound fantastic and they played most of my favorite old material including Fluke, Proofs, Ha Ha and Whiner’s Bio.

In attendance was Kori and Jason’s one-and-a-half year old daughter Magnolia, who has a cameo appearance on the new album. That’s her babbling on “Nature and the Wreck”. Tonight was her first concert. I’d like to witness that battle of indie cred twenty years from now… “Yeah, well I saw Mates of State when I was one-and-a-half AND performed on their album”. Game. Set. Match.

The “Mates” also mentioned that they were planning to move to the city and asked the crowd if we knew of anything cheap. We laughed. Someone may or may not have yelled “Philly”.

Setlist:
Beautiful Dreamer / Fraud In The 80s / Fluke / So Many Ways / Goods (All In Your Head) / For The Actor / Like U Crazy -> Crazy (cover) / Proofs / Ha Ha / Think Long / Whiner’s Bio / Parachutes (Funeral Song) / Punchlines / Running Out // A Control Group / I’ve Got This Feelin’

At the end of “Like U Crazy” they played a short cover of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”:

Mates Of State – Like U Crazy^2.mp3

The sound quality in Castle Clinton declines in direct relation to your distance from the stage and the speakers. Since there is no roof, a lot of the sound is lost by the time it reaches the back of the venue. As you can hear in the above clip, anyone talking reasonably loud can become a distraction. I’ve learned to deal with chatter, but some people can be very distracting and inconsiderate. There was one couple next to me who talked loudly throughout the entire set, then left before the last three songs. Uh, oh, here it comes…

{¡Rant!}
Seriously, if you’re going to talk to someone non-stop for a full 60 minutes while a band plays (and not even care enough to stay for their last few songs), just sit in your apartment and play their freaking album in the background. It’s probably a lot more comfortable, usually cheaper and it keeps you from coming off as an inconsiderate jerk. Maybe you’re not really inconsiderate, you just don’t have any regard for other people’s feelings. No, wait… that’s inconsiderate. If I need to talk to someone at a show, I lean over and speak directly into their ear; I don’t try to have a conversation from a normal distance by raising my voice so that anyone in a twenty foot radius can hear me. At least not for a whole hour. And especially not at an acoustic performance or a relatively quiet outdoor show.
{¡End Rant!}

You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t get angry often. Can you tell I haven’t slept in the past 34 hours? Next week, Okkervil River plays Castle Clinton. I didn’t have a problem getting a ticket at 7pm today, but if you want to be close to the stage you’ll have to get there when they start distributing the free tickets at 5pm (maybe earlier). The venue is folding-chair seated and they were very strict about not allowing people to block the aisles. I would estimate that about 150 people can sit in the section nearest the stage. The whole place probably sits 400-500 with standing room for another 500 or so in the back and on the right side (these are very rough estimates). The view of downtown Manhattan is gorgeous from inside the castle grounds. Cheers to the River To River people for putting on so many amazing free shows this summer.

[Hope you like the new playtagger script that I stole from Tina. You can still control-click (right-click) on mp3 links to "save as", or click them to listen, but now you can also play them without needing to open a new browser window. Next step, avatar? I wonder if I can get my stick figure self to speak. hmm...]