concerts - 2005

Rhett Miller
Opening Act: Inara George with Michael Andrews
APRIL 2, 2005
Swedish American Hall, San Francisco, CA
Overall, this was a pretty great show. The Swedish American Hall is beautiful and it has seats!

It’s always great when a solid, delightful opening act precedes a pitch perfect headliner. Before the waifish Inara George opened her mouth I pegged her as one of those high-pitched, delicate voiced girl singers—and she was, but she was pretty darn good and endearing. Her songs, which could have been too cutesy, too throwaway, too just-about-every-female-vocalist-played-on-Felicity, were smarter and stronger than I expected. Michael Andrews (of Donnie Darko scoring fame and helping create Gary Jules’ haunting version of “Mad World”) accompanying on guitar and occasional backing vocals was a joy to watch as well. He’s this crazy, energetic virtuoso, but he pulls it all together. After every song George & Andrews smiled at each other (and sometimes giggled a bit too, well, that was mostly George giggling) as if to say “Yay! It’s so cool that we’re up here doing this!” Very adorable. They ended a show with a great version of Jackson Browne’s “The Fairest Of The Seasons,” originally sung by Nico (with George cheating with lyrics in hand because it wasn’t her song, which managed to be winning instead of annoying, though that was probably because she owned up to it before she even started).

Rhett Miller put on one of the best and certainly one of the most enjoyable shows I’ve ever been to. The guy was a ball of energy. He was quite funny and in between the songs, with their almost too-clever lyrics, he peppered the crowd with amusing anecdotes and comments. Reflecting on how the interesting layout of the Swedish American Hall made him feel like he was giving a lecture, he remarked in a professor-y voice “I know some of you are auditing this class and some of you are taking it for a grade.” Another cute moment was when he played “Erica, the Beautiful” (to the tune of "America, the Beautiful") a song written for his wife Erica, but played after one of my favorites, “Question,” both in honor of some friends of his who were just engaged.

The love for him in the room was huge. Beyond the girls next to me whispering “He’s so cute,” and beyond the girls in the front singing the backing vocals of "I don’t mean no" on “Indefinitely.” Everyone seemed to be having good time and every song was met with thunderous applause.

He played a lot of songs I really like, including “Our Love,” “New Kid,” “I Won’t Be Home,” “This Is What I Do,” “Buick City Complex,” and lots of other good tunes. The new songs and other unfamiliar ones were enjoyable too. One of the best songs was a potential for the new album he is about to start recording. It’s supposed to be a duet between a man and a woman (he originally said “girl,” but corrected himself, noting that he went to Sarah Lawrence and the math of the male/female and straight guy/gay guy breakdowns there), but he hasn’t found a good female to sing it with him. (Beyoncé was a suggestion from the crowd that made Miller laugh.) But he was very nice about letting us know when he was the man (facing the right side of the crowd), the woman (facing the left side of the crowd), or both (facing the middle), though as he pointed out it was easy to tell because the man’s part was all “why are you leaving?” and the woman’s part was all “who are you?”

Additionally, we found out that “Indefinitely” was written during a long one hour wait for a flight at the Oakland Airport, and while it’s not exactly a positive mention of my hometown, a shout out is a shout out. He kept mentioning (with an almost amused incredulity) the fact that it was a dry hall, speculating and eventually deciding that it has to mean BYOB. Rhett also told a charming story about how he was in a similar setting in Japan doing an acoustic set and the crowd thought they weren’t allowed to rock out and they were very polite about it. He wanted to point out that we were allowed to rock, but when someone in the back yelled "Stand up!" Rhett saved the day and said no, no, “That would get messy.” My hero. I heart him for that alone.