Architecture In Helsinki

Show: Architecture In Helsinki at Slim's
Headliner: Architecture In Helsinki
Openers: Dr. Dog, Still Flyin
Location: Slim's in San Francisco, CA
Date: Tuesday, October 18, 2005

In the morning I didn't know if I was going to try and go to this show or to The Hold Steady/Constantines show at Great American. I'm on The Onion's local events e-mail list though, and in the e-mail I got from them yesterday their was a contest for tickets to the Architecture show. I responded and won, which decided things for me.

Having seens Still Flyin back at noise pop in February, I wasn't gung ho to see them again. They're an ok band, with somewhere between 13-17 people on stage last time if I recall correctly. As a result of work load though, I got there late and completely missed their set.

I got there just in time for Dr. Dog, a set of rockers from Philly (I think). Their lead singer was oddly going for the Tom Petty look (look blond hair and sunglasses). Besides from their unfortunate choice of name, and the one song in which their sing seemed to be barking, they put on an ok set. I might look out for some of their other stuff, but not too arduously.

Architecture played for about 1:30 all things considered (encore + main set). They put on a good showing. The band was clearly having a good time up there, and some of it (but not all) got across to me. The band consisted of 8 people playing all sorts of instruments and it didn't seem like any one instrument belonged to any one person. Multiple people would contribute at several of the instruments. In addition, they frequently had the dancer from Still Flyin up on stage, besides just generally having members from both Dr. Dog and Still Flyin up there a lot. The body mass probably hit it's peak during the first song of the encore (a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody) but there was easily between 25 and 30 people on stage for the third and final song of the encore.

The show was a good time, if not life changing. The crowd was there to enjoy the music (I'm looking your way, Clap Your Hands show attendees), and the bands enjoyed playing it for them. At the least, no one opened their cell phones to simulate lighters as was done at the Green Day show...