Friday night Thunder Power!!!, Flowers Forever and Baby Walrus played at the Bemis. What an awesome line-up. For those of you who read this who aren’t in Omaha (which is probably most of you), please check these bands out. They all make really great and different music. You can buy the Flowers Forever album at Team Love, and the Baby Walrus one here , and you can listen to Thunder Power here. The show was to celebrate the releases of the Baby Walrus and Flowers Forever albums and also a fundraiser for Kianna from Tilly and the Wall’s bulldog Foot Foot who needs ear surgery. The Bemis is a great place for shows — it’s a basement art gallery and the shows are usually in this small room off the gallery. So it’s basically a warm, sweaty, sometimes smelly place with no stage and very little light.

Thunder Power!!! played a great set and sounded really good. Flowers Forever played their album in order. Derek was his usual energetic self, and the crowd was really into it — a lot of dancing. Baby Walrus closed with another amazing set. I’m always really impressed with how good they sound live, especially since their songs have unusual arrangements and layers and stuff.

Flowers Forever.

Baby Walrus.

The Bemis. Photo taken at an earlier, less snowy date.

Saturday was a cold, snowy day but Jamie, Erin, Sean and I made it out to the Bemis (Jamie and I made the trip twice, in fact). The following photos were taken from an exhibit/show titled “Visual Art by Musicians.” Let me know if that isn’t descriptive enough. If you want to see a list of all the artists featured, just click on the Bemis link above.

Some artwork. Left by Derek Presnall (Tilly and the Wall), right by Kianna Alarid (Tilly and the Wall).

Photos by Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

Artwork by Jacob Thiele (The Faint).

Jamie admiring the antics of Derek Presnall, captured on video.

Flowers Forever. They are a great live band, Derek has a lot of energy and fashionable accessories, a killer combination. Their upcoming CD is coming out on Team Love February 5 (out in stores Feb. 19, pre-order available now).

You can download three songs at Team Love.

Fourth of July. From Lawrence, Kansas. She’s In Love is a super catchy song, and they closed with it.

I saw Bright Eyes tonight at the intimate bar/venue The Waiting Room – thanks to Cynthia who skillfully procured the hard-to-get tickets. The show was pretty amazing. It’s too late (or too early) to write about it in any articulate or even cohesive way. Simon Joyner and Flowers Forever opened — sadly, I missed most of Flowers’ set, but enjoyed what I did see and Simon Joyner sounded good tonight too. Bright Eyes set list photo below.