Friday, July 10, 2009

Dr. Dog & These United States @ Prospect Park

On June 27th I mosied on over to Prospect Park to Celebrate Brooklyn with These United States. It was great to see them in such a big venue, as the last time I saw them was in one of the smaller downstairs rooms at the Knitting Factory. These guys know how to rock ‘n’ roll and they did a great job of getting the audience pumped. People were dancing in the aisles or even in their seats. Although I have to say I wish some of the audience weren’t as pumped as they were – there was a small group of obnoxious men who thought it was witty and hilarious to yell “USA! USA! USA!” every 5 minutes for most of their set. Here's an mp3 from their upcoming album, due out in August/September.

It was also unfortunate the they were followed by Phosphorescent, who I personally thought killed the energy from These United States’ set and left Dr. Dog with a lot more work to do to get the audience’s energy back up. Not to say that they were bad, it was much more of a programming error in my opinion - I didn’t think they fit in well with the rest of the line-up, which was mostly upbeat, while they're songs were slower than molasses and they couldn’t really hold my attention because I was so in the mood to rock out after These United States.

Dr. Dog was a lot of fun. The stage was decorated quite nicely with flowers for them and they had a huge, devoted fan base turn out in droves. The Philly band is a bonafide indie sensation, and while I wasn’t all that familiar with them, I could see why at the show. Their music is really infectious and the whole audience was bopping and singing along. And any band that brings a dog on stage with them gets bonus points in my book (and that dog is so well-behaved, letting the tons of audience members crowding the stage pet him). All in all a fabulous night.
The Old Days [mp3] - (iTunes)

More photos here.

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