After taking to the stage at the Horseshoe Tavern and playing a few introductory songs, Trashcan Sinatras heralded the beginning of the night’s main event – the Scottish band’s performance of their first two albums in their entirety – with the distinct opening chords of “Obscurity Knocks.” As opening tracks off debut albums go, “Obscurity Knocks” is certainly a pretty solid grabber, with its jangly chords and clever lyrics like “I like your poetry but I hate your poems.” OK, maybe it’s less a grabber than a song that gently taps you on the shoulder and says, “Hey, check out this album, won’t you?” Regardless, it’s a solid track.
Singer Francis Reader announced that the stripped down acoustic versions of songs of off Cake and I’ve Seen Everything that they would be playing would represent each album in “kind of its primordial state,” adding, “And we were a bit more primordial back then too I guess.”
The show would prove to be a rather mellow, stripped down affair. So mellow in fact, that the Horseshoe had rows of chairs set up in front of the stage. I’ve been to a lot of shows at the ‘Shoe and I’ve never seen that before. I’ll admit, it was a little weird, though it suited the intimate nature of the performance and it was also nice to stand at the back and be able to have a relatively good, mostly unobstructed look at the band. And really, watching three middle aged Scotsmen play acoustic guitars while sitting down also kind of calls for the audience to be sitting as well. Plus, as I said, it makes it a lot easier to get a good sightline from the back of the room, so I’m cool with it. It is still kind of weird though.