Great Northern Deserved Better

They'd finished their "last" song, gone backstage and waited. But there would be no encore because there was no call for one. People had begun filing out of the Crocodile like Night of the Living Dead extras. A few of us lingered, hoping for more, but after the band peeked out and saw that most everyone had already left, they too called it a night. Vocalist/keyboarder Rachel Stolteand and The Comas' Nicole Gehweiler took pictures of each other because it was the last night of the tour. Singer/guitarist Solon Bixler went outside for a smoke. And that was that.

Yeah, we get it -- it was late and a Tuesday. But it was unfortunate nonetheless. Great Northern clearly had more songs to play and we were so thoroughly enjoying what we'd heard so far. Pulling heavily from their fantastic debut album, Trading Twilight for Daylight, it truly felt like the band was giving us every thing they had. One had to look around at the sparsity of the crowd to be reminded it was a Tuesday night at the Crocodile. Transfixed by the stage presence and the music itself, we felt more like we were at a much larger, higher profile show.

It seemed to us that we weren't the only ones enjoying ourselves. The audience applauded, whistled and cheered heartily between songs, so it's confusing to us why everyone bolted for the door before the band was really done. Doesn't everybody know -- if the lights are still out and there's still ambient feedback emanating from the stage, the show is not over? Admittedly, we generally find encores to be an over-used, silly and self-involved practice, but it doesn't mean we're going to formally boycott them.

All in all, it was a fantastic show. But what a let-down to have their set cut short because Seattle was feeling sleepy.

Thanks to VIRB, we can at least stream Trading Twilight for Daylight in its entirety.

Performance photos after the jump...