Josh Ritter

I saw Josh Ritter at the 9:30 club on Tuesday night and it was fantastic. As I mentioned here last December, I loved the Animal Years, the cd he released last year. On the first few listens, I don't like his new cd The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter quite as much, but it's still pretty good -- well worth listening to.

Still, truth be told, I was not particularly looking forward to the show, which I bought tickets for about a month ago. Mostly because it didn't start until 10 o'clock on a Tuesday night. What the hell? I'm too old for that crap. Plus, I had to miss then end of House.

But I'm so glad I went. He was great. The band was great. He had a horn section! But mostly he was just so happy, it was infectious. He kept saying how happy he was to be there and thanking us for coming and whenever the horns would come on, he would say "Horns!" and, at one point, he said it was the biggest show he'd ever played in the U.S. I would also like to say that the smoking ban makes seeing a concert at the 9:30 club a much more pleasant experience.

It was webcast on NPR's Web site. You can find it here. The sound is not that great (but that could just be my speakers), but at the 16:30 mark you can hear my friend J. shouting "Yes," when he asked if anyone in the audience was from North Dakota.

So, the strange thing is that when I came to work yesterday morning I called this guy who is basically my boss to talk about work. And we were chitchatting and I said that I had been to a show last night and that he probably wouldn't have heard of the guy, but when I said the name Josh Ritter, my boss starting singing "Idaho," a song off of The Animal Years. He said he had seen him a few times, but mostly because this other guy we work with is such a huge fan that he's seen him 10 times, including flying to Dublin to see him a few weeks ago. That's devotion!

Anyway, I would like to point out for our readers that the's playing in Minneapolis on October 17 and in Boise on October 20, among other tour dates.