I was in Colorado Springs with my cousins last night to see a show- Maktub at 32 Bleu. It was a great show, like all of Maktub’s shows have been, that I’ve seen. I highly recommend them, if they come to your neck of the woods. Kind of a Lenny Kravitz / Led Zeppelin / late ’70’s R&B kind of thing. It’s not really like that at all, but I don’t think I’m very good at that “they’re like this other band” kind of thing unless the bands really suck. Usually I like a band because they’re _not_ like every other band I’ve heard. Anyway, Maktub’s cool.

They had an opener called HeirUspecs. I think I’ve got that spelling right. [You must- that spelling links to their site]. They pronounced it the same as the word “haruspex” which means something pretty strange for any fairly straightforward hip-hop act to be using as their name. It was a fun act too though. Watch out if you go- there was some vulgarity, although not nearly what you might expect if MTV is the basis for your understanding of what hip-hop is. I don’t own a single hip-hop album, but it’s fun live, if it’s not all about ho’s and popping caps and stuff.

Speaking of popping caps, there was this guy in front of us on the dance floor, thin white suburban kid in cargos and a blue polo. He reminded me of Dignan in Bottle Rocket. He was jumping up and down, right in front of the stage, making devil signs or something, when Maktub was playing. Even during their slower songs, he’d grab the edge of the stage and swing down, almost to the floor, and then jump up again and yell and yell, and grab his embarassed friends and drag them up too. He seemed so anxious that the band recognize his enthusiasm. Is it that somehow, if the band sees you and appreciates your abject worship of them, then somehow you share in some small piece of what it is to be “with the band”? Maybe they’ll invite you backstage to party, or tour with them playing backup tambourine? I don’t know.

32 Bleu does a weird thing these days though- they play the openers as loud as the main act some times. Matt G said they did it at another show he was at, and it seemed like they did it last time too. That deprives you of the extra sense of excitement that you get when the main act comes out and they turn it up to 11.

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