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Long Beach, CA- Don’t you just love last minute additions to music festival line ups? With just about a week until the start of Music Tastes Good, the organizers dropped a rather pleasant surprise by announcing that Built To Spill was added to the lineup. It would be my first time seeing these indie rock gods from the 90’s and I was damn well excited.
I knew that the band had done several tours as a five piece and I was crossing my fingers that that was going to be the case on this night, but from where I was standing shortly before the band went on, the equipment on stage seemed as if it was only fit for 3. As I and the other photographers were being herded into the photo pit, I could see my assumption was correct as Jason Albertini (drums), Stephen Gere (Bass) and of course Doug Martsch (guitar,vocals) took the stage.
Without really giving us much of an introduction, (they honestly didn’t really need one) the band right away started ripping into an extended version of my favorite track of theirs “Goin’ Against Your Mind” and it served as an unmatchable opener. After this Doug greeted us with a friendly smile and a few words. “Thanks for being here, we don’t have a lot of time so we’re just going to play a few of your favorites so you have time to run over and catch Ween”
And that’s exactly what they did. As extensive as their discography is, a large percentage of the set consisted of songs off their 1999 record Keep It Like A Secret and only featured one song off their latest record but I certainly wasn’t complaining about this choice. Finally getting to see Doug’s signature swaying as if he’s playing like no one is watching and hearing these tracks that were introduced to me at a young age was definitely one for the books. And closing out with the fan favorite “Carry The Zero” was just the icing on the cake.
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CLICK HERE FOR MORE MUSIC TASTES GOOD 2017 COVERAGE!
