Sunday night was my first time seeing them live, and I had an excellent time. I gotta say, though, Cass McCombs may have been saccharine and lifeless, but they certainly weren't the worst opening act I've ever been subjected to. That dubious honor goes to Triumph of Lethargy, who opened for Modest Mouse this summer at The Pines in Look Park, Northampton.
Ten or twenty years ago, ToL would have been a performance art piece about testing audience tolerance for atonal singing and guitar feedback.
Amusingly enough, Of Montreal's opening act was also pretty disappointing, considering that it consisted of everyone from Of Montreal except Kevin Barnes. As I wrote in a review of the concert elsewhere, "It's like they had no idea where our collective musical clitoris was; they seemed to be enjoying themselves, though, so we just sat back and let them do their thing, and when they were done, we made appreciative noises, and we're just not going to call them again. They also seemed to be going with the "well, we can't engage them musically, so let's just play really loud" approach."