Mason's Digressions - September 26th, 2007

Today was one of those days I'm happy to be here in San Francisco. I left work a bit early to get up to Aquarius Records, because Andee (one of the owners) had taken it upon himself to get Circle down to SF from Portland early so that they could play an in-store this evening. So at 6:00 the store was crammed full of people excited to see a chilled-out version of Circle's live show. And it certainly was worth it. The boys from Finland played a wonderful, fun set, concluding with a truly bizarre barbershop quartet ditty. And this after a mock battle and a beheading from Jussi's bass. Later tonight (actually the show probably just started as I type) they're playing another secret show on The Bus. And tomorrow night at Bottom of the Hill.

I talked to Jussi afterwards -- we hadn't seen each other in perhaps a couple of years! -- and he said they're pretty tired but he enjoyed the casual store show. Their tour's 20 shows in 20 days, and he's looking forward to getting back home and just chilling out, fishing, and reading for a week. Sounded good to me too. I wish.

So, I feel lucky to be here where such a cool band can have such a cool store put in the work to let them play for a small, enthusiastic audience of freaks. Bravo.