On The Eve of New O.A.R. Album

Shhhhhh it's 11 o'clock and I just downloaded the new O.A.R. album King. Don't tell itunes. Actually I'm getting ahead of myself. Let us flashback to this morning.

7:45 This Morning

Our hero finds himself in his car. He's been on the road since 7:15 and the reception of sports radio has been getting on his nerves. Too much static and the FM station that the Mike and Mike program is usually on is currently spouting religious music (at least that's what he believes since he's not hanging around to find out). So what does one do when frustrated with morning radio... they turn to their ipod.

Our hero sets up his ipod to play and waits for a commerical. Even through his frustration he sticks to his routine. He hits shuffle and waits...



O.A.R.'s Delicate Few starts to play through his speakers as our hero reaches for the volume. He doesn't care how early it this song needs to be played loudly. As a matter of fact Delicate Few would make our heroes top five favorite O.A.R. songs. Although he prefers the live version (the crowd participation at the beginning of the song is good fun for all) he has no complaints with the studio version.

Return To Present
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I found the playing of Delicate Few as a good omen. With the new O.A.R. album coming out tomorrow (shhhhh really 11 o'clock tonight) I've tried really hard not to be excited, but right now I can't help it. I need this album to be good. My relationship with the band hangs in the balance. If this turns out to be a mess and a re-hashing of 90210 themes I can't be held responsible for what comes next. But the Delicate Few omen and the fact that Taking On the World Today is a pretty good track has me feeling a little giddy. On top of that I've really enjoyed the Rolling In the Deep cover. It's almost like my band is coming back, but again I refuse to get excited. I can't make it through that kind of let down.

I downloaded the delux album (it had something like four bonus tracks attached to it and I recognized one or two of them as older O.A.R. songs which is has me pretty pumped to hear them recorded), and will be waiting until tomorrow to listen to the album. I don't want to start playing it now when I won't be able to fully appreciate it. Plus lets be honest here, listening to an album for the first time always sounds better when listening in your car (second helping should be done through headphones and third listening can be done within your home). I'm nervous.

But lets just focus on the past... for a minute. The great thing about Delicate Few is it's actually two songs. For me the first half of the song is probably the best (especially live) but the second half is just as good because it gets you up and dancing. The band has actually been known to perform City On Down and have it lead into the second half of Delicate Few. This is enjoyable but I prefer the song whole.

It's tough to find a good live version of Delicate Few. I want the crowd to be loud at the start and sometimes you find versions where the crowd doesn't know all of the words and it just sounds like a jumbled mess. I think the first time O.A.R. played the Garden might be the best version of the song. Maybe though. I need to do my research on this. I'm hoping that King holds on to these principals and doesn't leave me pissed off in my car tomorrow morning.

Random Music Note:

To make tomorrow even better the Foo Fighters released a six song EP from their live itunes show in London. They've been streaming it forever through itunes and it was ticking me off that everyone else who played the festival got to put their show out on record, so I'm pretty happy to have these six tracks despite the fact that it isn't the full show. I've been looking for a live Foo Fighters album for awhile (outside of Skin and Bones) and this will satisfy those needs for now. I have to get my brother in-law, Paul, to record the Wimbledon show to his computer. Things to remember. So if O.A.R. blows I've got Foo Fighters goodness to fall back on. The Summer of Foo continues!!! (Random Note- I finally bought the Back and Forth documentary yesterday. Watch it... right now).