My traveling companion and I just got back from the Pinback concert at the Orange Peel in Asheville, NC. We saw George and Marcie there, as well as a young woman I used to work with over at SHS. Marcie totally snagged the set list for that night. Rob drew a custom stick figure on it.

Some hippies offered to sell me "pagan poetry." This is somewhat akin to "Vogon poetry" and so I quickly fled.

We walked around Asheville and then caught a late meal at a local cafe. We arrived back at the venue just in time for the headlining act, Pinback.

Pinback - Rob Crow (late of Heavy Vegetable and Thingy) and Zach (late of 3 Mile Pilot) - play almost like the "adult-contemporary" of obtuse late-90s indie rock. Not surprisingly it drew a milquetoast white crowd.

Rob looked different than I had imagined, he had a longish beard, a short haircut, a t-shirt that suggested I call a prostitute stretched tightly across his growing belly. He also wore home-made capri blue-jeans, cut off just at the ends of his black socks.

Zach looks remarkably like Pete Townsend.

Rob and Zach were graced this time out by 3 backing players - a drummer and 2 multi-instrumentalists. The tour-only ep, Too Many Shadows, suggests that these guys are Kenseth Thibideau, Cameron Jones and Ryan Bromley.

Zach, meanwhile, mostly played bass and Rob mostly guitar, though both would later rock out with basses (my fav. part). Zach also busted out an awesome electric piano later in the set.

Harmonies were great and each song was nearly the same as the versions on the albums from which they came. These guys were tight, though something seemed off about the always-rocking "Penelope."

This was all well and good, but I could not help but hope for Rob Crow-isms (that are so abundant on his Thingy and Heavy Vegetable releases), Rob Crow-isms I did not really get. Pinback Rob plays it pretty straight. I also can not help but wonder what happened to the weird sounds that were so prevalent on their first release, like that awesome scratching on "Tripoli."

Between song banter was surprisingly light. I expected Rob to be a chatter-box, but he only occasionally spoke with us, the audience. He did talk about Star Wars Episode 3, in fact, his orange amp was decorated with the imperial logo of the empire. He said he loved the movie but that the acting still fucking sucked.

Pinback rocked the house with all of their hits.

Then I spent too much on CDs and a t-shirt and beers.

It is now 4 am, so I rate this show accordingly...

Rating: 4