Life inside the music box ain't easy

Photo by IndieRockLance

Regina Spektor is brilliant and funny and she made me cry. But that could have been the wine.

The show was really great. Packed house, despite this being her third attempt to play the Ryman this tour (both previous shows were canceled due to her inner-ear infection). The crowd loved her. She was wearing this ridiculous silver ruffled dress that made me think of a clogger. Everyone but me (but I?) had a camera, including two girls behind me who, for some idiot reason, didn't think to turn the beep-boop-boop-beep sound effects off so that every time they snapped a picture — which was constantly — Kristin and I were ready to start ripping up pews and throwing them. Okay, maybe that was just me. Note to aspiring concert photographers: TURN THE SOUND ON YOUR CAMERAS OFF, JACKASSES.

No matter, it was still fantastic. To think her voice sounds just as amazing in person as it does on her albums kind of blows my mind. I mean, she has a transcendent voice. And I love that she can be silly and unself-conscious about how she sings, throwing in percussive beats and random syllables and heavy breathing and funny pronunciations for effect. (And, during "The Ghost of Corporate Future," during the lyric about never watching the 10 o'clock news, she ad-libbed, "especially Fox," which got a good chuckle from the pinko commies in the crowd.) Pretty mesmerizing.

Even her opening act was awesome. My spies tell me that she and Only Son are a bit of an item, so it was neat to see him come back out and do "Hotel" with her doing the encore. I love me some skinny white boys beat-boxing. His solo act was good, too, though. He riffed on Elvis Priestly and Jimmie Cash, and said he was going to do right by the Ryman's history and play along to his iPod, which he did. Kristin and I agreed that there was something distinctly Flight of the Conchords about that. And we laughed and laughed when he and the iPod talked to each other. Good times.

Bonus friend-spotting action: Jeremy and Krissi and Maddie (whom I'd never met before) came into the Brewery while we were getting dinner, and waved right at me, and I saw them waving, but here's what my brain decided for me: There is a group of slightly silhouetted people waving in this general direction. Based on previous experience, when you have waved back only to realize that the people are, in fact, not waving at you and you have disgusted and amused them by waving back, you moron, I would advise that you play it cool and keep your hands on the table. Which means Jeremy had to walk over and practically knock me in the head with a barstool to get my attention. So they pulled up chairs and we all got to get drinks and dinner together before the show. LIKE WE PLANNED IT. People from the Dirty South stick together.