The Senate

Last night, I ventured to the U District (feeling about 100 years out of my league, BTW - a tribute to my impending 28th birthday) to see The Senate, a folk-rocky, harmonic, acoustic group with incredible talent. The venue, Cafe Solstice, is a coffee shop that (blissfully) serves beer and wine as well. Stella in hand and just feet from the stage, we enjoyed an energetic show peppered with light humor between bandmates and a truly memorable version of The Band's "The Weight" at the end. You can't help but tap your toes, stomp your feet and clap your hands along with this group's rhythmic tunes - my current favorite being "Ocean Song," the folk version of John Mayer's "Your Body is a Wonderland," though the comparison doesn't really do The Senate justice. For a group so young, they have a backwoods melancholy that belies their age and brings to mind Southern plantations and Appalachian mountains, and the truly heartfelt voice inflection in some of their more personal songs is a tribute to their songwriting capability.

The Senate, rocking their "face-melting acoustic riffage".

Moreover, I was so happy and content just to be out, frosty beverage in hand and surrounded by string-plucking melodies. At the end of the day, sometimes, it just don't get no better'n that.