By Tyler Fassnacht

Having seen Built to Spill twice before (once over the summer at the Outside Lands Fest and once a couple years back at the Barrymore), I knew what to expect: a really good show. Luckily for Madison, BTS didn’t disappoint.

The opening act, Disco Doom, came out around 20 minutes after the scheduled starting, which might have set me up to not fully get into these guys. The band was solid and they played music that was similar to BTS in some aspects. My only problem with them was that many of their songs were very down tempo and I was way too excited thinking about BTS for any of that. At another time, in another setting I feel like I could give Disco Doom a better and fairer chance, but sorry guys, this was a night for Built to Spill.

After a very quick setup, BTS came out and opened with “Three Years Ago Today”, a track from their first record, Ultimate Alternative Wavers. They followed that with “The Plan”, a fan favorite from Keep it Like a Secret. The trend continued, of playing a wide variety of songs from different albums and by the end of the night, not one album was left un-represented. We were even treated to a new song and the Halo-Benders song, “Virginia Reels Around the Fountain”.

The music was the night’s main event, with very little banter from the band, except for when there was an audience guessing game to figure out who was on Doug Martsch’s shirt. It was Kurt Vonnegut. The lack of conversation from the band was not something that seemed to take away from the show, because I honestly couldn’t think of a song in their set that I would have given up for more talking. They jammed out on songs, played intertwining guitar lines provided by the three guitarists and Doug Martsch seemed to sing his heart out. The short songs were too short and the long songs, some of which ran close to ten minutes, which is small stuff compared to how long they can run at times, weren’t long enough. The crowd ate up everything the band did, right up to their closing song, the always epic “Goin’ Against Your Mind”. No one seemed to be fully satisfied after the nearly hour and a half set, and after the lights came up the audience left and as people went up the aisles, they were already starting to reminisce about how awesome the show was.

Thank you Built to Spill, for never allowing a let down.

Set (in the best order that I can remember): Three Years Ago Today // The Plan // Traces // Time Trap // Reasons // Wherever You Go // Hindsight // Else // Kicked it in the Sun // Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss // Virginia Reel Around the Fountain // Carry the Zero
Encore: In the Morning // Stop the Show // Goin’ Against Your Mind

Buy: Built To Spill