I figured I'd do a Friday post using last week's Stuff I Listened to in High School theme, with the band Guster. Their big gimmick used to be that they used only percussion played by hands - no sticks - but they don't do that exclusively any more since hand percussion is pretty hard on your hands after a while. I think I first heard of them opening for Barenaked Ladies at a show I went to in high school; yeah, when the other dudes I knew were listening to your post-grunge, your pop-punk, and your nü-metal, I was pretty solidly in what seems to me now like the adult-alternative arena. Anyway, they were pretty funny and I still like some of their harmonies. Ryan Miller sings the lead on the verses in this one, at Bonnaroo in 2004.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjJF3SYe57M
(There's another one down here...)
When I went to law school, I met a Mormon from California who had gone to school in Massachusetts for a while, and he told me once he was friends with these guys from back then (The band all went to Tufts). At one point while he was going to school in Minneapolis, he apparently stopped into the coffee shop across the street from the law building and ran into another guy from the band, Adam Gardner; they both said to each other "What the f*** are you doing here?" It turned out Adam was in the city to play a show with his other band, the Levees. Adam sings the verse lead on this song about being in a cult, "Airport Song", at Woodstock in 1999.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqXECeSQCPI
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I caught part of their act during Austin City Limits one year. They weren't very good in the small sample, but the worst thing was the sea of tween girls, who had to pay the entire day's admission but showed up right before Guster's show and disappeared right after.
I saw them at the Basilica Block Party a few years ago and was almost trampled by a horde of tween girls as I was heading towards the stage, but that was because The Fray played the set before Guster and all the tweens were on their way out after that as we were on our way in. I saw them again last year play the middle slot at the Block Party before BNL, and the crowd was nothing different than the usual 30s/40s Block Party set. Guster's set held up a lot better in 2010 than BNL-minus-Steven Page did, at least.
Weird. Maybe when I saw them, they'd just recently had a couple of radio hits?
I probably saw Guster 4 or 5 times between 2000-04 at various intimate venues around DC. They definitely were enjoyable live since the tweenieboppers weren't really going to 10pm shows in places that could only accommodate about 200 people.
I have not heard of this band, but one of my least fond memories was of being at a wedding with a live band that had only hand percussion. They were a Dave Matthew's cover band, which might have had more to do with it, but I can say definitively that it was the single worst wedding band experience I've ever had.
I saw them at Pinestock at SJU in 2005, and they were decent in the outdoor environment. At least all the girls were college age...