My 10 favorite shows of 2007

Here it is, yet another year end list. Of the 110 shows I saw this year, I’ve decided these were my 10 favorite…

10. October 24th - Thurston Moore at Neumos. Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore touring in support of his second solo album, Trees Outside the Academy. To get an idea of what this show was like, imagine Sonic Youth playing acoustic guitars and violins.

9. March 24th - the Heavy Hearts at the Sunset. Read what the Seattle Weekly said about this show and what Three Imaginary Girls said about this show.

8. October 8th - Band of Horses at Easy Street Records (Queen Anne location). A special in-store performance for the midnight release of Cease to Begin. YouTube videos from the show here.

7. January 14th - Rob Dickinson at the Tractor. Former frontman of the Catherine Wheel on stage all by himself playing songs from his solo album as well as Catherine Wheel favorites.

6. September 1st - Tiny Vipers at Bumbershoot. A magical performance in the EMP Sky Church.

5. April 6th - The Ruby Doe at the Sunset. It’s really hard for me to single out any one show by the Ruby Doe. To me, they’re all great. There was the show they opened for Jucifer at the Crocodile on March 8th. There was the show at the Funhouse on September 7th where using a fog machine, they filled the entire place with smoke causing most of the crowd to run outside while they continued to rock out. But this 17 song, marathon performance at the Sunset really stands out. They started with four songs from The Flame and the Fury, followed by four songs off of Dream Engine Blue, then four songs from Always With Wings, and finishing with five new songs.

4. June 2nd - Georgetown Music Fest with Earlimart, Voyager One, Tiny Vipers, With Friends Like These, Skullbot, the Hands, and more. A stellar lineup of (mostly) northwest bands and a well planned festival made for an amazing day of music. Way better than this year’s Capitol Hill Block Party. The second day featured Idiot Pilot and the Supersuckers and was also alot of fun.

3. October 3rd - Greg Dulli and Sera Cahoone at the Triple Door. This was the first of two nights at the Triple Door to benefit the Vera Project. Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs, the Twilight Singers, the Gutter Twins), with a little help, played stripped down versions of Twilight Singers songs and some covers in a beautiful and intimate setting.

2. September 15th - Qui and Lozen at the Crocodile. David Yow (Scratch Acid, The Jesus Lizard, and now Qui) acting like David Yow (his shirt came off, but his pants stayed on, thankfully). My earlier review is here.

1. April 4th - These Arms Are Snakes and Helms Alee at Can Can. The first ever Helms Alee performance completely blew me away. Then These Arms Are Snakes came out and amazed me some more. They played with an unbelievable amount of energy. Despite having no stage to dive from, singer Steve Snere still ended up crowd surfing more than once. Photos can be found here and here.

by Matt Koroulis

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