I saw Sparklehorse/Mercury Rev last night at the Trocadero in Philly. Damn fine show. Diane Izzo opened, and the place was damn near empty around 7:30-7:45. I wasn't sure if it was going to fill up or not, but there was a really good turnout by the time Mercury Rev started their set. Most of Mercury Rev's set was from their most recent album, "Deserter's Songs," with a few from "Your Self Esteem." The setlist, as wriiten officially for the band was: I got a setlist (which was later signed by Jonathan): (As written) 1. Tonight 2. Funny 3. Chasing 4. Holes 5. Goddess 6. Everlast 7. Opus 8. Not Dark Yet They put on a really tight show, and rearranged the songs to create a really intense live performance, especially from up front. They also brought their own lighting equipment, which made the show pretty impressive visually, as well. Definitely a band worth seeing, with or without Sparklehorse. If you happened to miss them this time around, they'll be opening for REM this fall. Sparklehorse were as good. Fucking incredible, both bands. The Sparklehorse setlist reads (exactly as it was printed): Philedelphia(Woodstock) Babies on the Sun Spirit Ditch Painbirds Tears on Fresh Fruit Saturday Rainmaker Sad & Beautiful World Sparrows Sunshine Homecoming Queen Pig All Night Home Happy Man -------------------- Hammering The Cramps Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer They played pretty close to it, but not exactly. Here's what they played: 1. Babies On The Sun 2. Spirit Ditch 3. Painbirds 4. Tears On Fresh Fruit 5. Saturday 6. Rainmaker 7. Sad & Beautiful World 8. Sunshine 9. Homecoming Queen 10. Happy Man 11. All Night Home encore: Hammering The Cramps The first song was entirely new, with alternating slower verses and really rockin' choruses. A lot of the vocals were through the distorted mic, though, and I can't remember what any of them were. Sunshine was really amazing, even when Mark gave up the guitar to run samples, leaving Jonathan Segal to take a beautiful lead on his fiddle. Homecoming Queen was also great, slowed down and feeling a bit like a mellower version of Spirit Ditch. As the show went on, the club started to get hot, so they opened the back doors up to let some air through. One side effect was that Mark's jacket and shirt started flapping up and down a bit in the back; it gave a really cool visual effect that's just too hard to describe. But suffice to say that, unintentional though it was, it was impressive. Once they finished their set, it took a while before they came back for the encore, so everyone started clapping in rhythm. The stage is really high up, so there's a 45 degree slant down before it gets to the audience (which was nice to lean on for the show); we started pounding on that in unison with the clapping, so that it got really really loud. When the band finally came back out, Jonathan said "You've got some kind of drum circle thing going on out here." Then they left us with Hammering The Cramps, and left everyone feeling entirely blown away. Yeah. And my friends and I hung around afterwards and talked to Jonathan out by the tourbus. We told Jonathan how great we thought the show was, even better than when they were here back in April, and he said that was because April was the last stop after six weeks of touring, and they'd just been through hell with the record company the night before. (His favorite show in Philly was the one they did with PJ Harvey last fall.) I asked him to sign my setlist, and he ran inside the bus and got Mark to come out, so we talked with him for a bit, then. He looked pretty beat, (Jonathan told us he'd gotten a migraine 20 minutes before the show in New York the night before) and he didn't seem over it entirely. He said, "I'm sorry we sounded really shitty tonight," but they were still damn amazing. I also asked about Babies On The Sun and that song with the chorus "one man's blood in a million." (Which he said was titled One Man's Blood.) He said they'd both be on the next album. Then he signed some stuff with the standard "best ditches" and "best witches." I also found a good use for those Sparklehorse matchbooks when Mark needed a light. Excellent show. And the both bands are really nice guys to talk to afterwards, if you're willing to stick around.