I took Emily to see
I took Emily to see Bob Mould last night at the El Rey. It was fabulous, here’s the text of my email to the sugar-list:
Went to see Bob play at the El Rey in Los Angeles last night. After spending 23 years in upstate NY, it’s nice to live in a town where people actually come to play concerts!
I’ve seen Bob play live twice, both on the tour five and a half years ago, after hubcap had been out for a while. One was with Andrew Duplantis, one was solo, but they were both acoustic shows. So, I’m used to the electric guitar being the treat that maybe comes out at the end of the show, overwhelming in force and volume. It felt foreign, definitely in a good way, to have the majority of the set played electric.
The backing tracks were good, although I agree with all the other listers who felt that they were a little loud. While I felt like they fit with most of the songs, I thought the two acoustic Husker Du songs in the middle (Hardly Getting Over It and No Reservations) would have been better without the backing track. On the flipside, I felt like some of the songs from modulate were better live than they were on the album, especially when the vocals lose the vocoder 
The videos were fine, and I thought that they were a nice addition to this type of show. Some were better than others, and I agree with my girlfriend’s assesment: The videos that tried to be narrative seemed amateur and clunky. The cartoon was great, , and a lot of the cityscapes/patterns were cool. The video with the band of Bobs was a lot of fun, but watching Bob playing the drums really made me wish it was Malcolm Travis (or Grant, Anton, or Matt Hammon really, but mostly Malcolm) behind the kit.
Bob flubbed Your Favorite Thing pretty badly, but seemed in good spirits about it. After the song ended he gave the crowd a look like ‘what the heck was that?’ In general, the crowd was pleasant, although it was clear that they were there to hear the big hits (huge reaction for Celebrated Summer, If I Can’t Change Your Mind, Hoover Dam), and didn’t seem really enthused about the new material.
It’s weird to see happy-and-fit Bob playing Too Far Down. The performance was powerful (his voice was pretty gone at this point, so it was sort of whispered), but it’s weird to see a guy who is apparently as happy as he’s ever been, singing such a dark song from a rought part of his life.
I bought LiveDog and LPG at the show and I’ve been listening to LiveDog over and over again at work. It really is fabulously mixed.
-Phil
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