I went to Arcade Fire last week. They were much better than I imagined, very intense. I’m going to Eisley and Mute Math tonight.

I wondered what Low would be like in a large venue like the big outdoor pavilion where this show took place. I’ve only seen them in very small places with crowds of 200 to 500 or so. I’ve always thought their music was best suited for smaller places—their music isn’t exactly arena material. I was sitting a good 100 yards away from the stage and it felt wrong to not be up near the stage. But the sound was great. Everything was very well balanced and beautiful. The people around me weren’t into it and there was a lot of conversation, which was annoying.

Low only played seven or eight songs, I think. Mostly material from their latest, Drums and Guns. “Sandinista” was as slow and quiet as can be, which I loved. I think the Wilco crowd was a bit impatient with the apparent simplicity of most of the music. They perked up a bit when Wilco guitarist Nels Cline took the stage and sat down with a steel guitar in his lap. But they were probably disappointed with what he did with it. The song was one I hadn’t heard before. During the first part of the song Alan Sparhawk sang a couple of short verses over his straight eighth note strumming, a slow beat, and a simple bass line. During this part Cline was just playing a note here and a note there, adding accents. Then the song went into a very long, noisy, tuneless instrumental section that very gradually built from a dull murmur up to a loud murmur while Cline improvised some tuneless guitar lines over the chord changes played by Sparhawk and bassist Pat Livingston. I was enthralled with it for about eight or nine minutes until they reached the loudness climax, but then I started to get a bit impatient myself as they kept on going for a few more minutes at that same level without doing much. It was cool anyways.

As Low ended their set with a rockin’ version of “Breaker,” I stood and cheered, all alone, in a sea of indifference. Screw you, Wilco fans.

Of course, I love Wilco. And they were awesome.