It’s nearly 24 hours after the Sadies/Black Mountain show at the Wild Buffalo, and my ears are still ringing! I was a little worried that I wouldn’t get in - I never got around to picking up an advance ticket, and I had a indoor soccer game to play until 10pm, so I didn’t get there until a quarter after. The place looked packed when I looked in from the front door, but I was still able to get in. Apparently the show was declared sold-out shortly after that. It was hot, it was packed, and it was pretty uncomfortable considering that I had just run my ass off on the soccer field before that. To top it off, 3/4 of the capacity crowd was swarmed around the bar. The ‘Buff needs a PBR station - just someone there handing out cold cans of PBR with one hand and grabbin’ cash with the other. Luckily I saw my pal Bill right at the front of the bar, so I yelled to him to get me whatever he was drinking. Just after that the show kicked off with the Sadies taking the stage. I’ve seen them many times in the past, starting with their first Bellingham show opening for Neko Case at the 3-B Tavern (they opened for her, then were her backing band during her set). This time they had a bunch of albums worth of material to choose from, and they did a great job picking a few songs from each of ‘em. The songs, performances and banter with the crowd were great - the Sadies never fail to disappoint. I talked to a few people later during the Black Mountain show, who were there to see Black Mountain, and they all said they were either surprised by how awesome the Sadies were, or said they were better than Black Mountain! Towards the end of their set they played a powerful cover of Pink Floyd’s “Astronomy Domine” that blew everyone’s minds. It was completely unexpected, given the Sadies usual country/spaghetti western twang, but it was the right choice with that particular crowd.

Black Mountain came on shortly after and my energy level, after a full day at work and an exhausting soccer game, was fading fast. I was determined to make it through the first few songs, which in the case of Black Mountain, ended up being about 40 minutes. I wasn’t blown away by the vintage keyboard doodling and metal guitar riffing of their first song, but the songs that followed were much better. I dug the vocals of the guitarist, but I wasn’t sure about the female vocalists’ warbling, goat-like stylings. It got to be a little much - kinda like the vocoder vocals of Black Moth Super Rainbow get to be too much after 6 or 7 songs. I finally could barely stand and had to call it a night - overall a great night at the Wild Buffalo.