Portland, Oregon band Loch Lomond took a while to set up, but this was okay since they had a lot going on.  Violin, viola, vibraphone and so on were set up and sound checks were done until finally they were ready.  Lead singer Ritchie Young was dressed in a straw hat, shoes with buckles, rolled up pants that showed his green and white striped socks and clothes that showed his thin frame, but when he turned around I saw another side of him (literally and figuratively) with the words "MOTHER FUCKER" displayed in studs on his guitar strap.  The drums were not the typical set, but were less than the norm and the floor tom was stacked on instrument cases.  Before the band started, the musician in thick black sunglasses and a leather jacket told everyone how he was born just a few blocks away.  Young then started off solo before the rest of the band joined in for the song "A Field Report” which was pretty good, with only room for criticism of the repetition of the phrase "Field Report" despite the rights entitled by the song title.  Still, this petty remark would be the worst that could be said about the band.  The crowd on the other hand, at least a good chunk of them, had a big problem with not keeping their yammering gullets from chattering through the whole set.  This was worse than the usual disrespect of the people at the bar, or the completely acceptable now and then comments.

The next song was "Elephants and Little Girls".  They described how it was about elephants and little girls.  This song was even more solid than the first and very catchy.  The next was not bad, though stood out the most at the end with "la la la"s.  "Northern Knees Trees And Lights" was next and it was nice as well as handy that he announced the title of almost every song.  Most bands name a couple if you are lucky, either being too cool to do so or assuming most people do not care.  During the song, the clarinet player did not have the end of his instrument situated to point into the microphone, so it was not loud as it should have been, though he seemed to read my mind at that moment and fixed the problem.

There next song was a new one called "Blue Lead Fences" and had some nice viola picking and Young using a pic on the violin.  The music was good and while it did not really go anywhere, the song at least picked up in intensity.  The next was a short one where Young played the acoustic guitar and sang, while all the others only sang.  This was followed by "Song in 3/4", or "the Gypsy song" as it is also called, a band member added.  There was a part in the song where a "whirligig" (what they called their long light tube that they played by spinning) would be used and everyone was to sigh.  The band member in the leather jacket also said, "Well...if you are chatting at the bar, keep doing that."  The respectful portion of the audience did sigh actually, but the whirligig was hard to hear over the rude people.  The next song was warned to be a quieter song, but that did not change the audience's behaviour.  There was even a part in the song where the lyrics were "Pay attention".  If I was in the band, I would have put a different sort of emphasis on those words, but they were better than I.  The music did get much louder later and overpowered the vocals a little.  The last song was "Tic" and was one of the best of the night.  They put on quite a performance and deserved to be the headliner, but if the crowd has dissuaded them from returning, I will hunt those noisy miscreants down like dogs.