Friday night The Blank Tapes' Matt Adams returned to L.A. to play Spaceland for probably the millionth time, this time with “combating teams” of the Bay Area and Orange County musicians he played with on his recent tour of Brazil and a fantastic mustache that enveloped his entire face. They only played eight songs, and they sped by super-fast before the clock hit midnight and Spaceland kicked everyone out for the night.

Credit: Vivian Martinez

Credit: Vivian Martinez

I like seeing the Blank Tapes live because they're reliably awesome every time, but I was excited for a more upbeat lighthearted set than usual. Not that songs like “We're Better Not Together” aren't awesome, but that's one fantastic break-up bummer that probably wouldn't have gone over quite as well on that cold Friday night at Spaceland.

About a third of the set were new songs about making new friends, vacationing in Brazil, and getting high, so I'm betting it's been a great summer for the Blank Tapes. I wish I had that kind of summer, but then again, it's still 80 degrees in mid-November, so maybe there's still time for me to win the lottery and hop on a flight to Sao Paolo.

After singing about hitching a ride to the big show, Matt introduced “We Can Do What We Want To” to a very loud response of “Fuck yeah, America!” the first of many hilarious comments from the “positive heckler” in the audience. “We Can Do What We Want To” is an incredibly catchy pop song that conjures up sun-drenched California afternoons no matter what time of year it is. “Do You Want To Get High” followed, a song title that still provoked an excited “Maybe…possibly!” from the audience. Matt cracked a smile and sheepishly replied, “Well… possibly… later…” before jumping into “Do you want to get high, my baby? Do you like to get high?” which brought a lot of laughter and grinning from the crowd.

The Blank Tapes rounded out the set with a gritty rendition of “Smoke and Mirrors” off of recent album Daydreams, which got an enthusiastic applause encouraging more play time, but Spaceland runs too tight a ship for an encore. That's alright, though–Blank Tapes tour constantly and surely they'll make another trip down the California coast again soon.

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