Damien Jurado

I had a great evening Saturday night seeing Damien Jurado at Paradiso, with E who knew him back in the day in Seattle. E and I first went to dinner at Getto, which was an awesome place with an American/international sort of menu. I was planning to try one of their burgers, but then I spotted the special, which was grilled kangaroo with mashed sweet potatoes. It was delicious.

And the Damien Jurado show was amazing. The audience as well, everyone was quiet from the moment he and his band members, Eric Fisher and Jenna Conrad, came onto the stage. It was so quiet you could hear the floor creak when people shifted weight. And at the end of every song people would wait and wait until the last notes died out before beginning to clap. It was unbelievable how attentive everyone was.

Damien mostly played songs from his new album, which I enjoyed more this time than when I saw him in Seattle since I know the album now. There were a couple of older songs as well, from albums I don't have, but the songs, Ohio and Lose My Head, really stuck with me. Ohio in particular really caught me and I think it was after it that Damien said "It's weird. Sometimes my own songs make me sad." Another part of the set that was memorable was the intense Gasoline Drinks slowly leading into Go First, one of my favourite songs from the new album.

I smiled when the first song of the encore was Hoquiam, a song I've had stuck in my head lately, and one I like quite a lot. Then Damien played two songs on his own, starting with a cover of a song that had a folk sound to it. I recorded the end of it, realizing it was about sailing to Australia. I think it should be my theme song for when I go there. I put up the video of the song.

After the show E caught up with Damien and we found out that the next night he'd be playing at a venue in Leiden. E told him I live there and got him to write my name down to put me on the guest list. Thus I saw him two nights in a row and went to my first show in Leiden.

Sunday night, when I got to the ticket desk at the venue, QBus, I said I was on the guest list and the guy was all "Ah, you're the one person on the guest list!" Heh. The audience in Leiden was small, but not tiny, and they were just as quiet and into it as in Amsterdam. Unfortunately the band seemed less engaged and perhaps tired, so the show was not as good as the one at Paradiso, but I still enjoyed hearing them play.

Photos from both shows (and the cat living at Getto) begin here.