Manchester England’s Doves will always bring back Sicily to me. Back in 2000, when I went on my solo trip there, I spent many a night listening to their first record Lost Souls, and on this last trip, I was listening to the third release Some Cities. I don’t know what it is about Doves and Sicily, but I do know their layered, guitar driven sound comes through perfectly on my little speakers in whatever dinky hotel room I may be in. They were, and will be, the soundtrack I always remember from both those trips.

It’s really weird how the music business works. I remember when Doves were first being talked about, back in 2000, and I remember that a new band called Coldplay was also one of the new hot bands. It was like, Doves and Coldplay. They were equal right then, but I liked Doves better right from the start, and most people I played both for agreed with me. But one day I was in a supermarket somewhere in Sicily, and what was playing on the canned sound system but friggin’ “Yellow,” Coldplay’s first uber-hit. I was like, whoa, these guys are being played in a supermarket in SICILY. What up with that? Then at the October 2000 Radiohead show at the Greek Theater in LA, all the cars had Coldplay flyers on them after the show. So, there was some serious marketing going on behind Coldplay. But why Coldplay and not Doves?

Last night, I saw Doves live down at the House of Blues. It’s been almost six years that I’ve been listening to them, I have all their records, but man oh man was I not prepared for this show. They totally ROCKED. It was really and truly one of the best shows I’ve seen all year, and I have seen a lot of shows. The sound was incredible and the band just totally tore it up, smoothly and professionally. And it was LOUD. It was so awesome that I wanted to go and have sex with one of them. And I am not like this, generally (with bands, anyway.) I’ve seen Coldplay, and seriously, there is no comparison, for me at least. And there I was, in shoelicking distance, not in Section You Are Fucked at a huge arena. I’ll repeat – AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME.

So today I was sort of recovering from that. I am almost always hungover after a show, but I am starting to think it is all the energy I expend that is killing me in the end. Or maybe I am just dying slowly from happiness.

Tomorrow, I head to Long Beach for the pre-Xingolati party. Bags packed, hair colored, it’s gonna be an experience for sure.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 12th, 2005 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Adventures in Rock and Roll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.