So Thursday night we went to Atlanta to see Them Crooked Vultures at the Tabernacle.

I had been wanting to see a concert there for a while and this one certainly fit the bill. It is a smaller venue which only holds 2600 and it used to be a church. I don’t know what it is about the design of a church that makes it so acoustically pleasing.

Now I chose myself to be the designated driver for a couple of reasons. One, I don’t like other people driving. Two, I had to be at work at 7:30 the next morning and no one else did.

Now usually when I go to a show its just Laila and I, but this time we decided to take a whole band.  So it was a Crass Mammoth field trip and I was the bus driver.

We arrived in plenty of time and had no issues except for parking the Tahoe into a space made for a Volkswagen Beetle. So after getting most of the vehicle in between the lines we headed out into the cold night air of downtown Atlanta. The one thing that irks me about the area is the number of times you will get approached by panhandlers. So we waded through them and got to the show in plenty of time.

The venue itself is unusual. It has 3 levels with bars and sitting areas on all of them. The top two levels had seating. So the boys headed to the floor and we headed up to the third level to find a seat.

The opening act was All the Saints, and they were good. they were pretty hyped up about opening for TCV and the drummer appeared to be a little hammered as he fell off his stool twice at the end of songs.

As far as the main act, they were awesome.   I had only down loaded their album the day prior and had barely listened to it, so I knew none of the  songs. But it didn’t matter.  I was blown away by the talent on display. It was nothing fancy with a very simple light set. No lasers, no explosions, no tricks to distract you from the music.  I may have seen better shows in the past, but this was the most powerful performance I’ve ever seen.

By the way Them Crooked Vultures will be on Austin City Limits tonight.

So after squeezing the vehicle out of the parking garage without causing any damage to it we headed North. We ran in to some bladder issues from the non designated drivers of the bunch so I had to make a pit stop.

Since I had not eaten prior to show and I was starving we headed to Steak and Shake.  I was trying to decide if this was the Steak and Shake that Kid Rock got into a fight at. My wife insisted he was at a Waffle House. Honey you were right.

In a flashback to my youth the only table at Steak and Shake that was available was next to table of five Georgia State Patrolmen. It was the one time that evening that I was glad I was the designated driver and had only consumed one $4 bottle of Dasani water. The meal was about what you’d expect but there was there crazy, irritating whistling sound coming out of the kitchen that ruined the usual Steak and Shake ambiance.

Burgers consumed we got home about quarter to 2 in the morning.

The Hotel del Charlie was just large enough to hold all the members of the band for the evening. As long as they don’t add a horn section we can do it again sometime.