Desaparacidos

Have you ever loved an album so much, but knew you would never ever get to see any of those songs live?  This can't be that strange of an occurrence, especially if you are a fan of bands that broke up decades ago (like my sister, Bear, the Zeppelin superfan).  But since I tend to like smaller, more accessible bands, and since I live outside of SF, I've always been very lucky in this respect.

Boyfriend's favourite album of all time is In the Areoplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, and by the time he really started to listen to it, they had already broke up. So, when Jeff Mangum (the singer/songwriter) was touring this past spring, he was so excited.  And were blown away – he played 90% of the album live!  A dream come true for Boyfriend, who thought he would never ever hear his favourite songs live.

Tonight, we're going to see Desaparacidos and The Velvet Teen, which will be a giant musical blast from my past.  They're touring for the first time in 10 years, and goddamn and I excited.

Desaparcidos is best known for being fronted by Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes fame.  They formed in 2001, released Read Music/Speak Spanish in 2002, and then disbanded.  And in those 10 years, I have listed to their one album over, and over, and over.  For me, there's just something about it that album that I can't get enough of.

I've seen Bright Eyes live twice, and nearly back to back – once during the I'm Wide Awake it's Morning tour, and once right after for the Digital Ash in a Digital Urn tour.  And based on those performances, I imagined that Desaparacidos would be just as amazing, louder to be sure, but amazing.

And tonight, I finally get to find out.



photo from desaparecidosband.com