This weekend Yeak went to the Fox Theater in beautiful Downtown Pomona to see Modest Mouse. Well, maybe “beautiful” isn’t the right word, but it’s looking better than it has is in years and it definitely has a pretty good vibe going on.
The Fox Theater is also pretty nice since it’s restoration a while ago, but it’s starting to look a little worn. It may need that refresh continued. We’ve always liked going to Downtown Pomona for concerts. Between the Fox and the Glasshouse, it’s a nice draw for solid bands without having to go into Hollywood and dealing with the annoying parking.
We don’t want to spend too much time on the opening act, Mattress, but this has to be the most pathetic excuse for entertainment we have ever seen. Wearing a silver suit and pushing a few buttons on a sequencer, he strutted and danced on the stage singing off-key lyrics that sounded like they had been written in the bathroom 5 minutes before showtime.
Maybe it's art, but 45 minutes of it made us actually angry. If we hadn’t been lucky to get a great place in the orchestra section, we would have left during opener.
Modest Mouse is a band we always thought was decent but never really got into. They had a couple of nice hits and, at one point, Johnny Marr from The Smiths played with them. Marr wasn’t there but the 8 piece band sounded great. Two drummers will always get attention but the musicianship of the entire band was impressive. They had a great performance and even the songs we didn’t know sounded great.
The crowd was amazing! Sold out with one with one of the most age-diverse crowds we had seen in a long time (not counting the recent Pixies show we had been to). It certainly got our attention.
One last note: while the concert was great, the sound seemed muddy. We couldn’t understand the lyrics or when the singer was talking. Some instruments got lost in the echo of the room. We don’t know if it was acoustics or just bad mixing but it became a little annoying.
We would recommend seeing Modest Mouse anytime, anywhere. They’re a great live band! The Fox is still a nice venue but we wouldn’t put it as high as we had in the past.