I just got home from a concert. I hadn’t done that in a long time. And I have Nick and Sarah to thank. Thanks, Nick and Sarah.

When I wrote my Best Albums of 2009 list, I asked if anyone had any favorites that I might have missed. Nick dutifully left me a comment about a band called The Leisure Society. I had never heard of them before. But Nick was never one to lead me astray so I found an album of theirs and was ready to give them a shot. But before I could even listen to the album, Nick was back in touch to tell me that The Leisure Society would be playing a concert in Barcelona the very next week! I placed my order for a ticket without a second thought.

The concert was Tonight. After a scrumptious but modest dinner of dumplings and spicy piranha (no!), we headed over to an intimate little venue called Sidecar in Plaça Real for the gig. If you want to pronounce the name of the club like a real Spaniard, you have to say “seed-eh-CAR”. Silly Spanish. The line had already started to snake around a nearby restaurant and I quickly observed that – from all the beards, vintage glasses, self-rolled cigs, and tight black pants – we were surrounded by hipsters! I instinctively tried to make a run for it but Nick talked me down by reminding me that the band had been favorably likened to a British Grizzly Bear. I was intrigued.

I would rather see a halfway-decent band in an intimate space than an amazing band in a stadium where you end up watching a video monitor all evening. It’s a good thing that The Leisure Society was much better than halfway decent. They were great. I would liken them to a Sufjan Stevens-inspired amalgam of Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend with the occasional Beatles harmony thrown in for good measure. I didn’t fall head-over-heels in love, but I had a very good time and look forward to hearing more from them in the future. Good times.