Saturday May 3rd was my day with DeVotchKa. It started early, for a Saturday, at The Triple Door. I took DJ Gort as my plus-one for a KEXP Club Concert. I’ve been to several of these events over the last few years, and they do not disappoint. The Triple Door is made for music. The seating is dinner theatre style – a lot of half-moon booths with tables facing the stage. The walls are wood and the acoustics are heavenly. It sounds so good in there, I was a tiny bit afraid I’d be disappointed later that night. They played a few from the new album and a few “oldies”. Lead singer Nick Urata wasn’t very talkative, which is a shame. It’s such an intimate setting, it begs for some witty repartee. Gort managed to fall asleep, the sounds were so soothing. You can listen to the performance through the KEXP website (May 3, 4:06 PM).

After the performance, we caught a matinee showing of the new Pacino film “88 Minutes” where Gort fell asleep again. I don’t blame him, though. The movie was horrid. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it really was not good. What made it worse was that it was set in Seattle. Some scenes were actually filmed here, and most were not. No rhyme or reason to that, either. I almost feel like they filmed as many days as they could in Seattle, then when their permit ran out, they headed north to Vancouver. It seemed sloppy, and the script was dumb dumb dumb. (IMDb says it was all filmed in Vancouver.)

Went back home for a nap, then headed down to the Showbox Sodo. This was my first time in the venue for a concert. I had been twice before for AIS student fashion shows. I got there after doors opened, but still managed to get a nice spot next to the stage. The opening act was singer Basia Bulat, a sweet looking blondie from Canada accompanied by a violist, a cellist, and a ukulele player. Ms. Bulat kicked some improbable butt on a zither (aka autoharp) while singing her own songs. She also played acoustic guitar on about half of the songs. Her sound was a little folk, a little country. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I was impressed enough to buy her cd for my sister today.

Bulat and band left the stage, then after what seemed like forever, an acrobat leapt across the stage tossing silk flowers into the audience. Upon her exit came DeVotchKa and they played. They had pretty much the identical setup as they did at the Triple Door. Here they had an electronic keyboard instead of a piano. Their roadies had notebooks telling them where every instrument, every microphone, every music stand and chair should be. One guy in particular seemed to be in charge and he was meticulous. I hope he’s getting paid well.

I had a very good position at stage left where I could watch the string section pretty much up close. I am fairly sure I developed a crush on Tom Hagerman that night. The intensity and apparent ease he displays on the violin is breathtaking. A second violinist plus Bulat’s violist and cellist made up the quartet. I’m a sucker for strings, so I was quite captivated. DeVotchKa started out with older songs from previous albums. Energetic and flawless, if I were a different person, I would have been dancing along. It was quite a delight to see Jeanie Schroder doing knee bends in time with the music with that shiny sousaphone wrapped around her. They got some new songs in as well in the hour they were on stage. They exited but the show was not over.

AlexandrA, an aerialist, came out onto the floor not more than 10 feet from where I stood. Her cloth (for lack of the correct term) had been let loose from the scaffolding and she climbed on. Twisting and turning, wrapping and flipping, she performed her tricks for us as the band snuck back to play for her. When she was done, the band played a few more songs. This was followed by an encore consisting of a 10 or 15 minute jam of “Such a Lovely Thing”.

By the end, I was hot and I was exhausted. But I was very satisfied.