No time this morning to write an update because I was finishing a huge feature on Film Streams, the new indie movie theater that’s being built as part of the Slowdown No-Do project. Even though it’s not a music story, the piece traces how Film Streams’ Rachel Jacobson got involved with Saddle Creek impresario Robb Nansel for the project, so I’ll be posting the story as a feature on Lazy-i Wednesday.

I was surprised at the number of people who e-mailed asking if I attended the Maria Taylor show Saturday night. With all the Film Streams stuff and my interview with The Willowz (that’s next week) I didn’t have time to write a review this weekend (and I figured that no one read the site on weekends anyway… guess I was wrong). There was also the problem that I showed up at are around 11:11 (get it?), in time to catch only the last half of the last song of Maria’s set. I’ve got to hand it to the fine folks at One Percent Productions — they said they were going to start shows at 9 p.m. sharp starting in 2005 and they’ve held firmly to their word. Chatting with people during the break, turns out I wasn’t the only one who disappointingly missed most of Maria’s set. Well, the 30 seconds or so that I did hear sure sounded good.

That being the case, Statistics got the headline position. I have to hand it to Denver Dalley and his band — when I first saw him play a year or two ago, Denver was one of the most reluctant performers I’d ever seen on stage. Back then he didn’t seem to know how to sing into a microphone, his sets were marred with odd keyboard instrumental tangents and there was little if any recognition of the audience both during and between songs. Months and months on the road have turned Mr. Dalley into a confident showman. He now looks comfortable behind the mic, doing as much as he can with his somewhat low-key voice — he’s no screamer. Instead of belting out the songs, he sort of mews them out in a style that’s counter to the more bombastic sounds being created by his rhythm section (soundwise, I would have preferred more of his guitar in the mix). Denver seemed to spend more time chatting up the crowd than singing, telling everyone how much he loved being back home (He wore an I heart Omaha T-shirt), pointing out friends, family and supporters, and doing group shots with the audience of around 150 (by my guess). Halfway through the set, Denver asked the crowd to join him on stage and got about 10 takers, who jumped around during one of the songs. It made for an interesting, albeit short, set — I was home shortly after midnight.

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