Edit: I really need to stop blogging at 2 in the morning. The opening song was "Black and White," not "Black or White," which is by Michael Jackson and involved the King of Pop morphing into a pathera pardus and smashing a car with a crowbar. And half my sentences don't make any sense.

I saw the dB's tonight, for the first time and after two years of obsession with the band's first two albums. I was going to go to the show with JL, who is my concert buddy and has been my only concert buddy since senior year of college with the exception of the Alek-Julie-me exodus to the 4/26/2004 Irving Plaza Sleater-Kinney show, missing the Federation rally to my great chagrin but getting in retunr an extremely Hot Rock, Call The Doctor, and One Beat-heavy set, and a couple of shows - the Wowz, Siren, The Go! Team, MIA, that I went to alone. Unfortunately the dB's sold out today at the last minute, so I was on my own.

I suspect that I was in the lowest one or two percentile agewise in relation to the crowd, many of whom had very grey hair - or very little hair - and wrinkly faces. There was a row of ridiculously tall men in leather jackets standing in front of me, and that was a bit lame. There was also a recurring flatulent odor which was not very fun to soak in.

That said, shows at the Bowery Ballroom are always fun because the venue has fantastic acoustics. (I saw Sufjan Stevens there last year.) The dB's set started out explosively, with a bombastic rendition of "Black and White," then turned to "Dynamite," with it's awesome synth-organ parts, and "Big Brown Eyes" sans Hubley animation. "Living a Lie" and "Neverland" were both incredible, as was "Happenstance" and "Cycles per second." Unfortunately no "Bad Reputation" or "The Fight" but the musicianship was impeccable and people-watching the 50 year old former hipsters was pretty amazing. Also the guy standing next to me looked like Ira Kaplan.