One of my absolute favorite bands, Cloud Cult, ended their 8 month live hiatus last Friday. They played at UW-River Falls in what turned out to be a surprisingly awesome venue inside the student center. The entire student center was nice and, according to the literature throughout, very green and quite sustainable. The bill included Bad Habits Brass (whom I unfortunately missed) and Jeremy Messersmith.
Jeremy Messersmith is one romantic beast. A guy that writes the songs I wish I would write. It had been over a year since I caught him last and the set list contained a vast majority of my favorites, including the rarely heard Tatooine. In fact, he may have said that it was the first time it had been played live, but there was considerable chatter where I was at that point. It could have been it was the first time the song was played live on Star Wars Day (May 4). Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone who makes songs with such depressing subject matter so alive and uplifting.
Cloud Cult doesn't play live music in the traditional sense, they put on mini fucking festivals. With live painters and multimedia, it is probably vastly greater of an undertaking than anything you have seen before. What makes them so epic is the stand alone genius of the music. Craig Minowa needs to be in the discussion for greatest songwriter/music maker of the past 15+ years. You can read the Cloud Cult history here. As I write this, I continue to be distracted by my search for Cloud Cult videos and the like on the interwebs so I suggest instead of reading this (a little late, I know) you do the same.
Videos on their official page
Sound check from a show I attended in Madison a few years back
Nice fan video to "Fairytale" Shows some of the great live paintings
Thanks for reading. I love you all.
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