Grandaddy The Warfield June 30th, 2000 opening for Yo La Tengo November 13, 2000 opening for Elliot Smith So if you know the two of us in the slightest, you have a deep and profound understanding of our love for our favorite band, Grandaddy. Luckily we are descending rapidly into old age, which really works to our advantage at their gigs. Basically, we look far too old to be fanatical about anything. Particularly surrounded by neophyte indiekids from out of town who have a passing interest in the headlining act. (Hey, we can say that. We used to be those kids, too.) Daz first saw them open for Grant Lee Buffalo at Bimbo's on a stage inundated with potted trees. She couldn’t even really see them. To this day, she still says, "Bring back the trees!" whenever we get a look at their latest stage design. Dragging Squid to check them out was no easy feat : "I’m sorry Daz, WHERE did you say they were from?". That was at the GAMH where they were opening for Snowpony. It's been downhill ever since. As is the case with many love affairs, neither Squid nor Daz was actually looking for any one band to be devoted to. Daz had myriad bands she was going to see all the time, and Squid had sort of given up on music at that point. Previous to this, many of our favorite bands weren't even American, let alone local. Grandaddy felt familiar to us, mostly because we both grew up in areas similar to Modesto socioeconomically. We knew about dusty roads and long-ass summers with nothing to do and outdoor strip malls and keggers in the woods and driving around under a full moon with your headlights off. Grandaddy were really one of the first bands who didn’t hide their farmtown origins. Their songs evoked a tweaked-out trip down the AM dial: imagine ELO, Alan Parsons, Kansas, and America spliced up and pasted back together with the feedback of a homemade electric guitar. Live, Grandaddy could either coat a song with Beach Boys layering or destroy it like a garage punk band. In certain cases, such as Broken Household Appliance National Forest, they would do both. Their lyrics carried this musical dichotomy even further with tales of nature and technology living in nervous co-existence with one another. Amazingly, they didn’t seem to realize how great they were. Grandaddy were original, yet they approached their performances with an utterly humble, disaffected, pleasant attitude. Anyway, that was a few years ago, and we've seen them quite a number of times since. Amazingly, we have only seen them headline two shows. Now, we understand the reasoning for that, the larger the venue, the larger the potential audience, regardless of placement in the line-up, etc. So we have dutifully gone to see them play twice at that paragon of indie-gone-big-time, the Warfield Theater. You'll be happy to know it hasn't changed much since you saw the Sundays there, save the addition of Anchor Porter to liquor list. Their first time there was as an opener for Yo La Tengo, which we felt was a really good match. The majority of the Yo La Tengo fans we know have big record collections and an open attitude about new music. People (at least the ones directly around us) were quietly attentive, sorta drinking in this group of guys in hoodies, baseball caps and plaid playing really original music. No surprises there. The single most important aspect of this show, the most crucial point that could be taken away from the experience was the fact that they played STREET BUNNY. For the uninitiated, Street Bunny is a heartbreaking morality play within a punk song about a young bunny who leaves the country and winds up in the city living a sordid life on the streets. It's not for the faint of heart. Squid would like to think that they played it simply because she yelled for it. They were probably just desperate to shut her up. Frankly, we were just excited to see them again. It had been too long. We know that the G-boys have a good relationship with Elliot Smith, so their second Warfield visit must've been a damn sight more relaxing. By this point things were really rolling for them, at least with regard to publicity. Meaning: there were very few people in that audience that didn't at least recognize their name before they entered the venue. Materially speaking, we were confronted with a pretty elaborate stage look, at least for the 'daddys. There was tons of foliage and a bird circling overhead and some lovely home movies of Ron the Stagedude puking up a quart of milk. We have to admit, it looked pretty damn cool, and was a comforting sign that V2 were encouraging them conceptually and monetarily. One necessary sacrifice of this more professional stageshow was a seemingly more restricted playlist and attitude. They seemed far more focused on the setlist this time, oblivious to silly audience shout-outs. (Translation: no Street Bunny.) Still, even though there was a bit more polish, we were super proud of them for holding their own with Elliot's crowd. They made a lot of fans during their set, especially when they came back out at the end of the night to perform "My Sweet Lord". It was, well, sweet. In a good way. --- Read our review and see our pics of the Acousticfest in Oakdale, where Grandaddy performed a short 5 song set.