For many things in my life, if people ask me my favorite, I can’t answer.
Favorite food? Can’t decide. Favorite movie? Its almost Joe versus the Volcano, but I waiver. Favorite color? Ehh…
But if you ask me my favorite band, the answer is most assuredly Better Than Ezra. Oh, I like all kinds of music, and if you narrow it to something like favorite country music, you’ll get another answer, but hands down, the top of them all is a little band from New Orleans. And its simply because, after over 10 years, 4 studio albums and one collection of B sides, they still haven’t put out a song I don’t like. Not one song rubs me wrong, or gets skipped in the CD player. Not one song causes me to feign interest while waiting for the good ones, because they are all good.
And to make it even better, BTE are excellent live. The guys really know how to work an audience. They play hits, they play requests, they play new stuff, they play cover songs, they make stuff up, they bring an audience member up and let him play… They don’t bother to speak political between songs, though they’ll often offer up a joke, noodle some familiar riffs, or remind people about an upcoming album or DVD.
They rock.
I’ve seen them in concert as part of festivals about 6 or 8 times, I lose track. But this weekend I finally went to see them in one of their own shows, down at the Roxy Theater.
They had two bands open for them, jad (I’m too lazy to look up how to make the symbol, but that’s pronounced like ‘jade’ with the long ‘a’) and Chuck Carrier. jad was pretty good, if a little overly loud. Chuck and his band however, were good enough that I picked up the CD on the way out. Its not often I do that, but he played well, and the songs were solid.
BTE took the stage around 11pm and they played a pretty solid 2 hours or so. As I said above, it was a mix of hits, requests, new songs, covers, and basically anything they wanted to play.
They rocked.
For my money, there just isn’t a better band. A close second would have to be Seven Mary Three.. but they don’t come to town for a couple weeks.
