I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: October 3, 2024] Nada Surf 

I left Soul Coughing for this show.  It was a risk because this was the first time Soul Coughing had toured in decades.  But I was so miserable at the show that I was happy to leave.  And it turned out that tonight’s Nada Surf show was fantastic.

Even though singer Matthew Caws’ voice was a bit shot because they had played two shows (one was a bonus show) the night before.

Since I had been at Soul Coughing, I arrived at Underground Arts basically as the final chords of Office Dog’s last song were fading away.  I didn’t know Office Dog who are a power trio from New Zealand.  And this summary makes me rather bummed that I missed them:

New Zealand singer-songwriter Kane Strang got tired of going it alone as a solo artist, he started an old-fashioned indie rock power trio called Office Dog. Backing him up are two friends from different iterations of his touring band: bassist Rassani Tolovaa and drummer Mitchell Innes. Like Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, and Built to Spill, this threesome emphasizes the personality of each player as it wrings maximum drama from a minimum of instruments.

So I hope they come back around.

This tour was for their latest album Moon Mirror, but they opened with two songs from 2003’s Let Go.  The crowd was totally into it–very responsive and singing along.  Matthew seemed to be really excited at the size of the crowd, which surprised me because I thought that they had played bigger venues before (but I see now that World Cafe Live is the same size as Underground Arts (this blows my mind as I feel like UA is quite small).

Usually, Blankest Year, with its big sing along “Oh fuck yea, I’m gonna have a party” is the final song of the show.  So it was kind of a surprise to hear it so early.  And that’s when Matthew admitted that his voice was shot and he wouldn’t be hitting the high notes or it was destroy the rest of the tour.  We all agreed that we would sing along and fill in for him.

Then came the first song from the new album, the new single In Front of Me Now.

I was rather surprised upon realizing that it had been six years sine I first saw Nada Surf, and three years since the last time I saw them.  All of the songs that I’ve seen four times have been from Let Go, which I find interesting.  I was happy that one of them was Fruit Fly, which I think is a delightful song.

Then they played a few songs in a row that I hadn’t seen them play before–two from the new album and one from the previous album, Come Get Me.

I was pleased to hear Mathilda again, and the crowd really responded.  I love that they throw in a song or two from their debut.  This time it was Zen Brain (the final song on the album).  And then new songs were sprinkled into the set after that (six out of the 11 from the album).

The end of the set featured some of my favorites, See These Bones and Blonde on Blonde.  After a few more songs the set was over and they came back after a few minutes for an encore.

I was kind of surprised that they played Popular, a song they didn’t play the first two times I’d seen them, but did play back in 2021 with Pom Pom Squad.

The last few times I’ve seen them, Always Love has been in the encore and it’s a wonderful sentiment to head out on,  But they weren’t done.  The band stepped away from their instruments and played an acoustic version of Blizzard of 77.

Matthew was waiting at the merch table.  I’ve had him sign a poster from two previous shows but there was no poster for this one.  So I had him sign a T-shirt I’d bought.  The shirt is for the cutest T-shirt, the meow meow song.  They didn’t have the shirt in any size that someone in my family could wear, so I bought a super small size as a souvenir.  I did hope that the shirt meant they’d play the song (which I haven’t heard them play) but didn’t.  Some day, I hope.

But I definitely made the right choice in going to this show instead of staying with Soul Coughing.

⇔ = High/Low (1996)
≅ = The Proximity Effect (1998)
‰ = Let Go (2003)
ϖ = The Weight is a Gift (2005)
£ = Lucky (2008)
♦ = The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy (2012)
⊗ = You Know Who You Are (2016)
⊄ = Never Not Together (2020)
∇ = Moon Mirror (2024)