at Paramount Theater

Last night's performance by Wilco at the Paramount was just a few strokes short of phenomenal. And those few strokes, mind you, were negligible at best. The set had that bright, perfect, let-your-love-light-shine kind of feeling, coupled with a stunning amount of... well, shredding, really, is the only way to put it. Hella shredding, even! Lovelight and shredding, with lots of emphasis on the new album, select tracks from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and a perfect integration of the rest of the band's catalog. Lines like what was I thinking / when I said hello {I Am Trying To Break Your Heart}, with no larger problems / that need to be erased {Impossible Germany} and you love her / but you don't know why {Born Alone} were delivered with the intimacy and care as if they were being played for a few hundred close friends at a venue the size of Neumos. Connecting with a room the size of the Paramount is no small task, and Wilco seemed to pull this off effortlessly, much to the crowd's delight.

On top of all the sonic bliss, fans seated up in the balcony were able to take in the show the full view of the stage and the incredulous setup of hundreds of rag-covered lights that hung from the rafters, which reflected an aptly-displayed series of lights and images that changed with the songs during the set -- birds, mountaintops, digital dreamscapes, and open skies. It was reminscent of the thousand-lantern stage setup that Grizzly Bear had at the Moore a few years back, only better. Shreddier, even. And so beautifully Wilco-esque.

{Set list after the jump!}

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We're just about a month out from Andrew Bird's next album release {Break It Yourself, due out on March 6th} and twice that from his upcoming show at the Paramount Theater {April 9th} with Laura Marling. Pre-album, the single "Eyeoneye" has made a (legal) foray out into the 'nets, and seeing as it's been on rotation since the minute the mailing list hit our imaginary inbox, we thought it fit to take a moment and hip you to it.

If this track is any indication of what Break It Yourself is going to bring to us on the whole, we're ready to put this as a frontrunner for one of 2012's top five albums without a single look back. There's a wide spectrum of recognizeable influence here while remaining decidedly Andrew Bird, which is to be expected -- he's one of those artists that continues to evolve with the world around him and change dramatically without departing too far from his baseline. And that said, there's a whole new freshly familiar vibe to the music: still laden with whistle-overs, graced with more than a hint of Phil Spector wall-of-sound-ery, and sliced through to the skeleton with a half-dozen emergent indie sounds of, well, right-fucking-now-ness.

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(Please oh please let them play this song at Wednesday's show)

This has been a rough week for me. Two of my favorite bands of ever and all time decided September, 2011 is the perfect month to step away from the tambourine and call it quits.  Oh REM and the Bluetones, I will miss you so. Your songs have made life worth living on many a day and I thank you for the memories.  

The only thing that has made the last week musically bearable is the fact that my dear Bright Eyes is going to be in Seattle this Wednesday, September 28, 2012 at the Paramount. 

And the best part? We've got a pair of tickets to giveaway to the Bright Eyes show!

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Whether you're married to the New Pornographer's one-of-a-kind sound or you're head over heels for the solo show: in some capacity, you loves you some Neko Case. We know. Us too. Some days it's the wandering piano-guitar intro of "These are the Fables" that envelops our hours and some days it's it's the trickle-down gorgeousness of "That Teenage Feeling" -- but no matter how we hit the shuffle button, everything this woman does pulls our heartstrings in the best possible way. Which is why we're over-the-top excited that she's coming to the Paramount next week with a newer love of ours, Y La Bamba. So excited, in fact, that we want to send you and a friend to the show!

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Peeking through the gates of the closed bar during DeVotchKa's set this past weekend at the Paramount, we caught a glimpse of what's sure to be our favorite show there yet: a photography exhibit by our friend Christopher Nelson. Master of the stage shot that he is, Chris has turned the tables on us for this show and put together an exhibit that's fans-only -- that's right, all of the dozen or so pieces hanging up in the bar (the show is aptly titled FANS) are of people freaking out at shows en masse. Never before have we seen so much 'yay!' in one place!

Come down and join the fun, as we'll be celebrating the formal opening this Thursday night from 5-8p.

{Admission is free, but this is a 21+ event. Cash bar will be available. More information about the opening can be found at the STG Presents website here.}

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{Go Greased Lightnin' Go photo by Joan Marcus}

I am bursting with excitement because the one musical that I have always been fond of is coming to The Paramount Theatre this weekend! I’ve never seen a live production of Grease, so I’m looking forward to seeing Danny, Sandy, Kenickie, Rizz (< my favorite) and the rest hit the stage to sing and dance—and duh. I’ll be singing and dancing in my seat right along with them.

In addition to this looking like a pretty slick show, the cast holds kind of a hilarious surprise: Carmine Ragusa – Eddie Mekka, AKA: The Big Ragu (!!!), Shirley’s boyfriend on Laverne & Shirley, plays DJ Vince Fontaine. I can’t lie; my L&S fangirl heart is all kinds of excited about that.

Grab your tix online now, put your hair in a ponytail, throw on your circle skirt and cardigan, and practice your “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop A-wop-bam-boom” - and I’ll see you there!

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Can you say rOctober, anyone? We can!

Here in imaginary-land we've been prefunking fall tour since laying eyes on Bumbershoot a few weeks back, sending lucky ticket winners to everything from Cobirds Unite to Pavement to Matt and Kim. And to help keep easin' that weather transition on down the road, we want to send you to another free show! As of right this very instant, we've got not one, but two pairs of tickets to give away for the Flaming Lips show this coming Monday, September 27th.

Two. Two pairs! So what are you waiting for? Enter to win!  Tell all your friends! Tell them twice! Open a new tab right this instant and send an email off to tig@threeimaginarygirls, and let us know why we should send you to the show. Act quickly, because we'll need your entry by 5pm tomorrow -- that's 5pm on Thursday, September 23rd.

(Be sure to use the subject line PuttingAllTheVegetablesAway so that we know that it's you.)

Good luck, everyone! We'll see you at the Paramount!

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The Marty Riemer Funny Festival has become arguably the biggest night for comedy in the Northwest over the past six years. This year’s event is this Friday (January 15) at the Paramount and features comedians Bill Burr, Kyle Cease, Nick Thune and Jeff Garlin, one of the stars of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, which I think is the funniest program on television right now.

This year’s Funny Festival is being billed as “Wholly independent since 2009” after Riemer’s often very funny morning radio show was canceled on 103.7 KMTT (The Mountain) last September. I met up with Marty Riemer and his equally funny co-host and partner in crime, Jodi Brothers, at a coffee shop in West Seattle to talk about this year’s Funny Festival, what people can expect on Friday, wrapping the governor in a shroud, and sex with koalas. Goddamn it.

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There are few things in this world that make me laugh as hard or as regularly as the HBO show "Curb Your Enthusiasm", so it should surprise exactly no one that I'm really looking forward to seeing one of the stars, Jeff Garlin, next weekend (Janary 16) at the Paramount as part of former KMTT morning show host Marty Riemer's "Funny Fest" (which also features the very funny comedians Kyle Cease, Brian Burr and Nick Thune).

For our first ticket giveaway of 2010, we are thrilled to give away a pair of tickets to the show to one of our lucky TIG readers and their guest. It's simple, just send an e-mail to tig@threeimaginarygirls.com sometime between now and 9am next Monday morning (January 11) with "FunnyFest" in the subject line and we'll draw a winner's name at random and notify you shortly thereafter.

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at Paramount Theater

Somewhere in the midst of plush seating, complete and utter emotional annihilation, and a sea of gorgeous cartoon owl-laced merchandise lies this fall's Swell Season tour. Showcasing to many a seated theater across the states behind last month's release of Strict Joy, Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova, and ninety-nine percent of the Frames swept last Sunday's crowd at the Paramount through one of the most compelling sets I've seen in recent years. Moving seamlessly from duo opener to full band to solo-singer-in-a-spotlight and back again, the show that these honest, earnest musicians put on was nothing short of true genius.

Glen and Marketa took the lead for the bulk of the opening songs (hence the sea of Glen photos), and proceeded to filter in the rest of the Frames for another half-dozen songs before Glen took solo center-stage rights mid-set. And this, as they say, is where the proverbial magic happened. What happened during Glen's solo piece of the performance rivaled even his mindbending set in Austin this past summer -- complete with a series of broken strings, a raging Van Morrison cover, and a rendition of "Say it to Me Now" microphone-free from the very front edge of the stage. Unlike some recent seated performances we've attended lately, this crowd was rapt -- absolutely and utterly rapt -- with attention for every moment of every song. And in-between fighting off a full-on sob festival and losing my lens cap, I took note (and very much appreciated) the lockdown that the Paramount staff imposed on seating, ushering in a few people every three songs or so and only during breaks in the performance.

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