Last night Jessica and I decided to checkout Plants and Animals at Schuba’s in Chicago after being really impressed by their performance when catching them down in Austin, TX a few weeks back. (Does that make us Plants and Animals Super Fans?) They were well worth seeing again, especially with a few* less beers to better appreciate the performance.
I gotta say, they are a great band to see live. I like their record, but I feel like it doesn’t really do them justice. They come across kind of lazy and laid back on record which isn’t bad, but live they are super tight and cohesive and have this great raw emotional energy that comes across much more aggressive feel.
Also, I got the chance to try out my new toy that Jessica got me for my birthday: the Zoom H2 handheld digital recorder. The H2 is really awesome. It’s about the size of a large cell phone and it has 2 built-in stereo mics (that’s right, it could record surround sound if you wanted to). It records digitally to an SD card in WAV and MP3 format. And it’s super easy to use. I literally opened the box and used it that night without direction.
I did run out of batteries about 3/4 into the set, but I was able to grab the first 45min. Here it is for your listening pleasure, enjoy:
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* more like several
tracy says:
sweet! I knew this was here, but hadn’t come to track it down until now. I have to disagree with you on the live performance vs. studio recording, though. I adore that album. The layers, although numerous aren’t overdone. I love it. Try it with a pair of Bose headphones on. Whew!
Mar 28, 2009, 3:40 pm