AC Newman is the Canadian front man for the band The New Pornographers.  His solo musical style does not stray far from that band and his first solo album was full of solid memorable hits.  He is back now to promote his second.  The last time he was at The Casbah was when the stage was smaller, which was a long time ago.  He said, "Cheers for the new Casbah stage...Jeers to the old stage." 

A familiar face popped up among his supporting band; it was Miranda Brown, also of Crooked Fingers among other bands.  She commented on having a feeling of vertigo since she got there.  I hoped it would not affect the performance and it did not.  I did notice that her microphone was slightly too high and so she kept standing on her tiptoes.  Later, it seemed that it had been adjusted, but she continued to lift herself up off and on when singing.

There was a band member I did not even notice until he came around to play trumpet and later went on the keyboard.  The drummer wore a jacket at first and by the fourth song I wondered why he did not take it off.  Right after the song, as if reading my mind he took off the jacket.  For the next song he clicked off with his sticks to start, but then said, "Oops, I keep trying to play the wrong song."  The right song came swiftly enough though.

The show started with a new song, the drummer using mallets the whole time.  It continued by going back and forth between new and old songs which was a great mix.  Later, three new songs were played in a row, but the last two were from the first album.  All in all it was a wonderful compromise.

One new song was about interstate 5 which AC Newman admires because it is the only road that goes from Vancouver to Mexico.  It was not a bad song, but the next night I found myself angry at his beloved I-5 which had some construction going on and gave me a major and unexpected detour (fist shaking).

The eleventh song was the second one with whistling, but this time the whistling did not really come through loud enough.  AC Newman commented after how whistling on stage is one of the hardest things to do because of how easy your lips dry.  I was thinking about the recent show of Andrew Bird who often whistles and then in another mind reading case AC Newman added, "I don't know how Andrew Bird does it."  He continued on how Bird was at a recent show of theirs and did not help them out.  Miranda said, "He should have stepped up to the plate." Another said, "But he didn't." AC Newman joked back, "Cause he's a rude guy."  The next song, "Come Crash" from his first album was introduced as a power ballad.  "More ballad than power, but you'll know when the power comes."  After, he said that in a moment of life imitating art he married a girl named Christina, referring to the Christine spoken of in the previous song.  After a moment of silence in response to this he said, "Damn it, it's interesting."  An audience member then said, "Very interesting, please go on."  AC Newman asked if he could come to all their shows.

Before the encore AC Newman asked the crowd that since they had no place to go, if they could skip the facade of the encore.  What a refreshing act that was, I loved it.  Out of the countless bands one might see, you must guess that some would not need a break at all and so would have no real good reason for leaving the stage.  Before the last song AC Newman said out of the ten times he has come to San Diego he has never gotten to go to Sea World.  A crowd member yelled out for him to just come back again soon.  "What, to not see Sea World again?" AC Newman replied and they played the last song.

While it was nice seeing AC Newman and his well crafted indie pop songs, carried by his great voice, there was a major difference between his new and old albums.  The first was full of distinctive memorable songs, but the second was easily forgettable.  The songs were still good and up to the AC Newman standard, but I found the finale song, “The Town Halo”, one of my least go to songs from his solo debut, as much more welcome to my ears than any of his new work.  The set list order helped digest the new material though.  In time maybe it will turn out to be one of those albums that grows on you.  Either way, the show was a good one.