Surprise!

Have you ever walked into something wonderful, completely unaware of where you were going and without expectation? Have you seen a performance of some sort with no previous knowledge, and walked away wishing for more? Have you seen a concert in an unlikely place or at an unlikely time, and came away whistling the tunes of the band or artist?

If you have, then you have experienced the top rung of the evolutionary ladder of the genus Pleasantus surprisus. I've been fortunate to experience a few of these instances.

Tonight, I received an email from the University of Arkansas. It said I should go to a concert in the Union Theater. For a week now I've been planning to write the literature review for my research project, and I had just settled into the idea of buckling down and getting it done tonight, so of course I accepted the invitation to do something else. The electronic flier attached in the email looked cool, and the band's myspace sounded alright, so there was no way I was going to let my responsible nature get in the way this time.

Bowerbirds is truly delightful. The band played against a backdrop of black and burgundy velvet curtains and to an audience in theater seats, and I really felt like I was at a play or the premiere of some new indie flick that only the elite knew about and I somehow stumbled into. The music was as simple and complex as many Andrew Bird songs, but there was a definite originality to the three-piece from North Carolina. After the set, the band played an encore performance in the stairwell down the hall; the audience just followed and filed in, lining the railing up three flights of stairs. Needless to say, I was impressed. I bought two albums.