i hate trying to get to the birchmere on a week day.

the traffic is awful, it’s a long way away, and if you don’t get there like an hour and a half before the show starts you are virtually guaranteed to be sitting at the back of the venue behind a post.

today, for some crazy reason, we got there barely 45 minutes before the show, and the parking lot was so abandoned that we thought the show was canceled.

we sailed through the lobby unmolested — except for the bouncer asking if he could check my “purse” — and sat down about 8 feet off the front of the stage.

crazy.

a couple months ago, around the time we were buying tickets to the show, we tripped across a tift merritt album we didn’t own (“another country”) and downloaded it from itunes. we figured we’d be okay at the concert anyway, since we knew her first two albums.

turns out we were actually TWO albums behind, so knew just three of the 18 songs.

we *still* did okay, which probably says something about tift and her band … i’m not sure i’ve ever been to a concert where i knew so few of the songs, yet still had such a great time.

the show was actually stolen by her husband (the drummer) of all people, who during the encore did a solo / ukulele number called “Evel Knievel for My Girl”, which really has to be seen to be fully appreciated.

SET LIST: The Things That Everybody Does · All The Reasons We Don’t Have To Fight · Engine To Turn · Six More Days Of Rain · Mixtape · I Know What I’m Looking For Now · After Today · Something To Me · Never Talk About It · Stray Paper · Papercut · Broken · Feel Of The World · See You On The Moon · Ain’t Looking Closely · Evel Knievel · Bramble Rose · Danny’s Song · Another Country