Best concert week ever + Cambridge

So on Tuesday night, I had the Bon Iver + Jens Lekman concert. Anyone who hasn't heard of either of these two should check them out immediately. Bon Iver is a guy named Justin Vernon who is from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He recorded an album up there in a cabin out in the middle of the woods, called For Emma, Forever Ago. This hit the internet and became a huge story, Pitchfork gave it a great score, many blogs took notice. Since then he's become quite famous, his music has been on Grey's Anatomy, House, he performed on Later...With Jools Holland, a big British entertainment show, and he's been touring for a few months now, getting huge crowds.

Anyways, my friend Mike from Lawrence was invited by Justin, his old guitar teacher, to join him for the tour. He plays guitar, bass, hits a drum, sings. So he got me a free ticket to this show, and the one in Eau Claire back in February. The show was fantastic, and Jens Lekman, who is now one of my new role models, was incredible as well. Afterwards Mike took me backstage -- backstage, people. We were sitting in a little room next to the dressing room. All the time, I was thinking "Come on Jens, just come in here for some reason, I have to see someone, being backstage and all". And sure enough, he did - he came in, nodded politely and went out the other way. It was...awesome.

So that was a great night. Then Wednesday night we went to Feist at the Royal Albert Hall, a huge concert hall, and that was also incredible. She has such great stage presence, and the whole stage show was very artsy, they had a projection screen where people on stage put various things throughout the show. Huge crowd.



Then yesterday I went to Cambridge for the Urban Anthro field trip. Really cool town -- if I were to move to the UK, I'd definitely live there, rather than London. Way quieter, and much more of a "charming English town."

The University of Cambridge is there, obviously, including King's College. On the recommendation of the professor, I went to the King's College Chapel at 5:30, and it was a "Sung Requiem" service. The choir is all-male, and 8-9 year olds, unchanged voices, sing soprano parts. I felt like I was in a movie, huge cathedral, perfect choir sounds, clergy walking down the aisle with a big wooden cross, it was just what I imagined it'd be like. The acoustics of the cathedral were incredible, there was like 4-5 seconds of reverberation, so once the choir stopped singing a note, you'd hear it for another 4-5 seconds, it was amazing.

I couldn't take pictures, but I got these off the internet: