The Airborne Toxic Event, April 27 at the El Rey

The Airborne Toxic Event did a week full of shows at clubs around L.A. around the release of All At Once, their second album.  Of course I had to go, at least once (and might have been more if it hadn’t been right after Coachella).  Carla wasn’t very familiar with them so it was time for her to be initiated.  The smallest place they played was the Troubadour, and that would be have been ideal except that I’ve seen them there before, and maybe the Satellite, which would have reflected their shows there from a few years ago (since I missed seeing them there back then, when it was Spaceland), but we hadn’t seen a show at the El Rey in a while and that seemed as good as any.  They’re still a big enough band to headline their own tour and play late but not to regularly play big places or with an elaborate stage set-up so it was the standard affair for them.  And good that they had new songs to play, though through all the times I’ve seen them they always seem to pull out a few tunes that aren’t on the albums but seem familiar to the crowd and they’re played like they’ve been around forever, so I’m lost enough that it always seems like a fresh show.  Carla became fan: Their music and performance would probably have been enough but that they played the Q Lazarus song from Silence of the Lambs, which I’ve heard them play before but never realized it was from Carla’s favorite-ever movie, was enough to send her well over the edge.  She's not on the level of near-obsessed fandom that I am but enough that we’ll surely see them again, though that isn’t a difficult feat wen they play as much as they do in their home-town, which is also where I live, lucky me.

The Airborne Toxic Event’s set-list:

"Numb"

"Wishing Well"

"This Losing"

"The Book of Love" (Magnetic Fields cover)

"Duet"

"All For a Woman"

"Changing"

"All I Ever Wanted"

"Welcome to Your Wedding Day"

"Does This Mean You're Moving On?"

"Papillon"

"Missy"

"All At Once"

(I know they played “Goodbye Horses”, the Q Lazarus cover, somewhere in there, near the end, but it’s not the on the set-list I found.)