I remember the day I discovered Band of Horses..This was around spring '06 I think. I was sitting at home in my last house in London, Ontario and i was listening to some good old itunes radio. I decided I would flip around to some indie stations and try to find some new bands to get into. I went upstairs for a beverage and when I came back down I heard a GREAT song and ran around the corner to see who it was. All I could make out in the song title was "horses". So I did a google search "horses music band" and the name "Band of Horses" came up. I played a couple of their tunes and it wasn't the same band I had just heard.......but actually even better! As soon as I saw that they were on Sub Pop, that was it. I had a new favourite band. Ok, call me indie snob but the Sub Pop sticker usually indicates quality.I ended up locating the album through the Sub Pop site and giving it a listen....it was like nothing I had ever heard. The vocals were soaked in reverb and in some weird southern accent. The songwriting was incredibly simple but layered in fuzzy guitars and thumping drums. The song that grabbed me the most was "Our Swords"......I just couldn't get enough of the transitions and delayed bass.
I remember playing that CD for everybody who came to my house.....it was almost like cost of admission. It gave me that feeling I haven't had since highschool.....when there was a such thing as underground music in my life. It seemed like every band that came out were gems that I could show friends and feel like the "founder". NOBODY had heard of Band of Horses and EVERYBODY loved it. That was a great summer. I'm pretty certain that BOH dominated my car cd player for 6 months or more.
After searching for shows and only seeing mid western - west coast shows, suddenly DETROIT! Perfect, called up some friends and we made the run for the border on June 15 06 to the Magic Stick.
As we walked up to the venue, there were 4 very scruffy looking fellows with sunglasses on having some food. My friend Eric turned to me and said "I'm pretty sure thats them....I'm going to go ask". Turns out it WAS them.......and they were absolutely astounded that we knew who they were. They were expecting to play Detroit to a crowd of unfamiliars. We explained how huge of fans we were and that we were Canadian.......again they were bamboozled. "You drove all the way from Canada!!!!!" exclaimed Ben Bridwell in his awesome South Carolina twang. We let him believe that was a big deal for a few minutes and then finally admitted that it was only a 1 hr drive for us.
I'd love to say that they knocked our socks off at that show....but unfortunately the sound guy at the Magic Stick was off in LaLa Land. There were many technical issues and not many people attending so the show didn't quite have the energy to leave us buzzing. After the show we met up with the band again out front and before sharing good-byes, Eric took the Canada Pin off of his jacket and handed it over to Ben. Ben acted like we had just given him a bar of gold, and offered that if we wanted to come to the Toronto show in a couple of days.....that they would put us on the guest list.
So Lee's Palace in Toronto was our next stop and I will say, this time they did blow us away. That show was incredible. We hung out with them, shared some beers, and chatted about the craziness they were starting to feel surrounding the album. In only a couple of days they had already begun to feel the mayhem and had been offered to make a video as well as appear on David Letterman. They were so humble and down to earth, it kind of imprinted on us what is pure and good about indie rock shows.....the ability to see bands that are in the exciting stage of their careers. The stage that is full of wonder and hope for where it all may lead. The ability to buy your new favourite Rockstar a beer and not have 100 hipsters lined up for autographs, all pretending they were the first to Discover the Band.
To finish off the post, I'll put up a couple of clips I took with my Dig Cam at that show. Lets just say I went back to Lee's Palace a year later to see them again and it was like U2 came to town. There would be no beers with Mr Bridwell in 2007.
