Tilly and the Wall are an indie pop group from Omaha, Nebraska. Their name originated from a children's book called "Tillie and the Wall," written by Leo Lionni.

Thank you Wiki for getting that out of the way!

What Wiki doesnt mention is that Tilly and the Wall are also one of the best live shows out there right now.

I don't usually post shows right after I tape them, but I just had to share this one. June 29th was just a good day. I think it started at lunch. I went and had Chinese buffet and got the complimentary fortune cookie. I've gotten good fortunes before, but this one was just hit me at a whole new level.


Increasing the WHOLE World's happiness. Me! Nice. ;)

I thought about the Cookie's message for a while that afternoon. I thought about the small things that we do each day - how we interact with other people, the words we use and the emotion that conveys and generates.

Note to self, I thought - believe the Cookie. Be cool every chance you get. Post more often on the Blog. Share the music and the joy. Bring an unexpected moment of happiness into someone's life every day.

So the day progresses and the girl I'm seeing and I go to dinner (lots of margaritas) then head over to the Tilly and the Wall show - Now its Overhead was just wrapping up their set, and David Dondero was preparing to go on. I'd seen Tilly 3-4 times opening for Rilo Kiley back in 2004. You can download a previous show of theirs that I taped - here. I thought that I generally knew what the show was going to be like based on my 2004 experiences. I was wrong.

Tilly have absolutely matured as a band. Sporting a fuller, more layered sound, amazing presence (is it me or have the girls gotten even more beautiful?), and boundless energy, the show was a hundred times better then I could have expected. The venue they played at, Walters on Washington is fairly small - maybe holding 200 people - but all 200 were going nuts, dancing along, singing the songs. The band kept throwing glitter and candy into the crowd - with the first 10 or so rows practically shimmering from the sparkly glitter that covered them.

The show rocked. One of the best shows I've been to in the last 3-4 years. I seriously considered driving up to Austin today to see them again. If it hadn't rained I probably would have.

Now here's the best bit. When I got to theshow I went over to the Soundboard to see if I could get a patch. Usually at this venue I get a feed via a 1/4inch out which has its own volume control - in other words, I can tell the Soundguy - hey, I'm getting to much signal here, please turn down the volume. This is a critical aspect of recording shows otherwise the recording will "clip" or sound too distorted.

For some reason, the 1/4 inch out was being used, so the Soundguy gave me a feed using his RCA Tape Outs. Unfortunately the Tape Out did not have its own volume control. I'd monitored the Dave Dondero recording and thought that the recording was clipping. I was pretty sad, and was considering not even trying to tape Tilly. In the hopes of a miracle, I just hit the record button before Tilly came on and hoped for the best.

I was so convinced that the recording would be terrible that I didn't even listen to it when I got home - I just went to sleep. After work the next day I downloaded the master recording onto my PC and gave it a whirl. And the miracle had happened. For whatever reason, the recording ALMOST clips for almost every second of the show - but it doesnt. It sounds fantastic. Totally captures the rock of the live experience. The Soundguy even ran a stereo mix - so you've got different things going on in channel, guitars hovering on the right side and the vocals panned left to right - emulating the stage set up.

Here's to the miracle - and to increasing the whole world's happiness! If you love this show as much as I did, take a second the next time an opportunity presents itself and do something unexpected and cool for another person.

Live MP3s
Intro
Fuck Yea
Sing Songs Along
Fell Down The Stairs
Rainbows in the Dark
Love Song
Bessa
Urgency
Reckless
The Freest Man
Bad Education
You And I Misbehaving
Brave Day
Encore Break
Pictures Of Houses
Nights Of The Living Dead