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It has come to my attention that I have gained a bit of a reputation as “the mean one” here at Wayward Panties, and I have to admit that I don’t mind the moniker. I believe in yin and yang, and I have no problem being the resident mean girl opposite my girl Tiffany. I tend to have high expectations and am not easily impressed. I go into a lot of shows setting the bar pretty high. So when I showed up at the Gothic for the Augustana show last night to see a multitude of teenage tanning-booth victims and a KBCO tent at the gate, I bought myself a Peroni and steeled myself for the worst.

But here’s the thing. Opening act David Ford blew me away. I didn’t know what to make of the softspoken, beared and fedora-wearing man onstage with a tiny piano. When he started live-looping, I even rolled my eyes a bit (Oh great, I thought, live looping is officially played out). But when he really found his groove, this British artist had this great, symphonic sound that is striking if only because he’s the only guy up there. But the thing that really got me is his sweet, raspy sound and pretty, heartwrenching songwriting. For those of us who love Tom Waits, we have been waiting for a long time for someone to resurrect the slightly-emo, charmingly optimistic, staggeringly talented spirit of his younger years. And David Ford presents a solid argument in his own favor for this role.

Ford’s live-looping technique breaks from the styles of Andrew Bird and the like by building to incredible crescendo, starting with a maraca or two, adding a guitar and drum riff, and then exploding in sound at the very end. But he doesn’t use this technique as a gimmick- he’s as comfortable and effective just sitting alone at his piano as he is adding tracks to his looping creations. And his between-song banter, unimposing and drily, well, British, just adds to the effect. I’d happily see David Ford again, just to see how he continues to explore both basic songwriting and his large-scale live-looping experiments.

David Ford’s people paid for my ticket, so I’m focusing mainly on his set (short as it was) but I believe Wild Sweet Orange deserves a mention as well. I tend to think of songs cinematically, and Wild Sweet Orange would create one hell of a soundtrack for a film where two people leave each other, move far away, and finally realize they can’t live without each other and rush to each other’s arms. They oscillate between the sweetly romantic and a kind of train-inspired, Southern traveling-song style that I’ve always loved, whether done by Willie Nelson or Bright Eyes.

As for Augustana, the headliners, I was not terribly impressed. As they took the stage, I finally realized why the aforementioned tanorexic teens had bugged their parents to take them to this show. These overstyled, overproduced rockers came off (to me, at least) as a musical Hot Topic, a way to commercially benefit from standard-issue teen angst. Their radio-friendly sound isn’t bad per se, just not my style. And so to avoid putting a sour taste in my mouth after seeing the first two excellent acts, I quietly slipped away into the night.

But what’s important here is that somewhere between David Ford’s inspired piano and Wild Sweet Orange’s cool, Southern rock, I realized I was really loving the music. I was tapping a stiletto-clad foot and humming to the melody. I was jotting down lyrics that I liked and contemplating buying the CD at the door. And for this mean girl, that’s a big deal.