So yesterday afternoon Bex asked me what we should do about the Andrew Bird show. He was playing last night in Columbia, then he’ll be in Omaha tomorrow night. The original plan was to take a half-day off of work tomorrow and head up to Omaha tonight to catch the show, but with a wedding to attend this weekend and a big project about to roll out at work today, more time off just wasn’t in the cards.

I did a quick check at Ticketmaster’s website half hoping that I’d find last night’s Columbia show sold out so I would have an excuse not to go, but I found not only was it not sold out, but it was an early show and Apostle of Hustle was opening. Well, I’ve had My Sword Hand’s Anger stuck in my head for the last month or so, and Andrew Bird is one of the few acts I would actively feel bad about missing if I did miss him (see also: MC Frontalot/Optimus Rhyme last week, Explosions In The Sky a while back), so we decided to head out.

Bex’s parents agreed to watch the dog for the night, so we headed out. Dinner at Shakespeare’s Pizza and we made it in to The Blue Note just in time for Apostle of Hustle to come on. They played a quick and fun set, then made way for Andrew. Great show, and I’m very happy I didn’t decide to wuss out and go to sleep early. It’s very cool to see him build the songs on stage, starting with a simple violin phrase which gets looped, followed by a bit of pizzicato violin looped over that, some of his whistling looped over that, then in comes everybody with the rest of the instrumentation and the song really gets underway.

He played a good mix of stuff from the new album and stuff from The Mysterious Production of Eggs (although he completely lost his place during Fake Palindromes). He closed the encore with Tables and Chairs and it was back in the car for the 2 1/2 hour drive back to Shawnee. At 31 years old it’s rough getting home at 1:30, but I’m glad I didn’t miss that show. Hey Andrew, next time around do you think you can come to Kansas City and spare me the drive?