Polyphonic Who? What? Huh?

If you dig The Flaming Lips and/or that sort of thing than The Polyphonic Spree are right up your alley. They perform with 20+ members, horns, choir, gee-tars, drums, general chaos, the whole shebang. I've been chomping at the bit to see 'em and at one point was even trying to figure out how I could book and promote a show with them in the Chicago area but decided the cost would probably be too prohibitive so I gave up.

Well good news for me and a handful of other cities since it looks like the band is hitting the road in early April! As a matter of fact Chicago has two shows and I intend on going to both.

On the web-site you can buy advance tickets by signing up to the mailing list -- I signed up months ago and the first e-mail I got was this week informing me of the tour so it's not exactly a spam factory -- and they'll send you passwords to access the advance sales. Now for the bigger shows I don't really see this sort of thing to be necessary but you might want to get in on the ground floor early for the smaller venues. For instance, in Chicago (the first stop of the tour and the shows I'll be attending) I got advance tickets to The Empty Bottle since they only have a 500 person capacity and I really want the visceral experience of a bunch of folks in white robes singing over the top joyous songs in a packed sweaty room. The Metro, where the other Chicago gig is, holds over three times that many people and I'll be there mainly to see the band through a kick-ass sound system. So you make your own call based on that criteria as it might pertain to your own town.

Funny how I plan on seeing the same band two nights in a row but expect to take totally different things away from each show...