I said it was going to be a fun week, and as proof, last night we had a front-row spot to watch the symphonic Portland folk-rock band Typhoon perform at Atlanta's Terminal West.

First, though, we had openers Sunbathe, another Portland band fronted by singer and guitarist Maggie May Morris.  We had not heard of them prior to last evening and for some reason our expectations were low, but we were most pleasantly surprised by the quality of Morris' singing and playing, and their poise and confidence on stage.  Their music might be called indie pop or dream-pop and with their too-short set, we were off to a good start to the evening.

Next up were Minneapolis' Bad Bad Hats, who are fronted by singer and guitarist Kerry Alexander.  We missed them when they came to town touring with Hey Marseilles in 2016, and were glad to finally get a chance to hear them.   The quality of Alexander's singing and playing were not unlike Maggie May Morris', which is to say good, but they had better-written, more complicated songs to perform.  In all, it was a second good set, embellished as it was by Alexanders' goofy nerd banter between songs.

The headliners, obviously, were Kyle Morton's band, Typhoon.  They're a large ensemble - last night they had seven people of stage including two drummers, and I've seen them in their hometown of Portland, Oregon with as many as 11 people on stage (I'm sure the cost of touring limits the size of the band Morton can afford to take on the road with him).

One of the many things I like about Typhoon's music is the variety of textures in their songs. Rather than have his large ensemble roar at you full blast for the duration of the set, Typhoon's songs have a wide range of dynamics - at some moments, it's just Morton and his acoustic guitar (for the record though, he played electric all night last night), and as the contents of the song require, he'll add two, three, five, or more instruments to the mix, and yes, at times there are cathartic moments of everyone on stage going full out simultaneously to make some dramatic point or another.

It was a fun set and it was nice to see Terminal West at full capacity for such a fine band.  But rather than try to describe the experience of a Typhoon show, here's a wonderful La Blogotheque video of a performance by the band at maximal personnel playing on a cold winter's night.

And because we're such hams and can't restrain ourselves, here's Typhoon performing at Portland's Doug Fir Lounge during MusicFest NorthWest in 2011, and dude, we were there!  That us somewhere there in the audience, hearing Typhoon's music for the very first time in our lives!