Guster at The Tabernacle

In December, I bought two tickets to see Guster in Atlanta on Feb 17. I bought them because A) Guster is the most talented band I have ever seen live and 2) my girl didn't get to go with me when I saw them in Birmingham in August. And I got a lot of flack about it b/c Guster is her favorite band. So these were super secret surprise tickets for her... it was my 4 year anniversary gift to her (Yes, our anniversary, Valentine's Day, and my birthday fall in the same week... Its a Celebration, Bitches!). Atlanta is an hour and 45 minutes from my parent's house, so we left early Saturday afternoon so that we could get there on time and get good seats, cause at The Tabernacle, its first come, first serve. And The Tabernacle is a really cool venue, by the way. Its an old church building with like four stories in downtown Atlanta, and its all wooden so it creaks a lot and you feel like the house is about to come down. The second story is where the main stage is, with a smaller stage on the first story. So around the main stage is standing room only and the third story is a wrap-around mezzanine with seating. Then the fourth story is a balcony that doesn't wrap around the sides and its probably 20-30 seats deep. There is a huge number of little side rooms where you can sit and make out, and the decor of the place looks like a three year old came painted the place. So, all in all, it was a cool venue. Not as cool as the Alabama Theater, in my opinion, but cool nonetheless.Alright, a review of the Band(s). Mason Jennings opened for Guster. My friend gave me a copy of their cd "Use Your Voice" a few days before the concert and I have to say my favorite track is "Lemon Grove Avenue." Of course, Mason didn't think it was pertinent to play the song on this particular night, probably because he knew it was my favorite song on the cd. Its called verbal irony. Anyways, they were cool, not as good an opener as Ray LaMontagne was back in August. And Guster was just as good as they were before. Not much really new to say, other than my girl thought it was really cool that they could swap instruments as much as they did. And I didn't stop to buy Ping Pong balls, so we didn't get to throw them at the end of Airport Song like I wanted to. However, we did get to yell "Dirty, oh so Dirty" during Airport Song, so it kinda made up for it. They didn't play FaFa, which I should have tried and email them like crazy to get them to play that song for my girl, cause its her favorite. Hindsight! Guster's sight doesnt' have the setlist up yet, so I'll put that up there as soon as I can. Biggest Surprise of the Evening: 1) Guster debuted a new song they are working on, apparently its a cover of a song. Made me want to get in a Conga Line. This is what Geoff has to say about it:"So we worked up a six-man version of "Brazil" for this tour, and it's been steadily improving every night. It was written in 1939 as "Aquarela do Brasil" and it's been covered by a lot of dead guys. Jimmy Dorsey. Frank Sinatra. Chet Atkins. Django. We're basing our arrangement on it from Geoff Muldaur's version, which was the theme song to the movie Brazil from the 80s. Muldaur's a Boston guy, very much still living, and Ryan somehow found him over email to tell him we'd worked it up from his rendition for this tour. He responded (!)...Hey Ryan...Feels nice to have spawned. You and your band mates must be slightly deranged to have chosen to do Brazil a la Pottery Pie... so for this I am encouraged about the future. Take care and enjoy.Best wishes,Geoff "A very awesome song.Biggest Surprise of the Evening: B) Brian (the drummer, aka The Thunder God) got on the mike and sang an awesomely horrible rendition of "Whats Up" by 4 Non Blondes. Everybody was really wondering what was going on...Biggest Letdown of the Evening: Completely unrelated to the bands, but some very immature high schoolers sat behind us and I got drenched with beer right at the end of the set... not cool, high schoolers. Learn to hold your damn beer...Gonna try and get some pics up in here...