"We love you, Orange people!"

Last night I went with a couple of friends to the Carrier Dome in Syracuse to see Guster and Ben Folds in concert. Apparently it was Syracuse's equivalent of Slope Day, so that's why they were able to get such a good lineup.

We foolishly assumed that Ben Folds would open for Guster, considering that (a) Guster was announced as a performer before Ben Folds, and (b) Guster's name is in much bigger font on the ticket than Ben Folds'. Unfortunately, it was the other way around. The less-famous group Hotel Lights played a 30-minute set, Guster played for an hour, and Ben Folds was still playing encores when we left 2 hours into his performance. It was already 11:15 at that point.

We were a little angry that Guster played such a short set, but most of the people were there to see Ben Folds. This was definitely a different experience from the other two Guster concerts I've seen (2006 and 2007), in which Guster was the headliner. It's really too bad that they couldn't have worked out a more equal division of time.

Regardless, Guster proved why I love to see them in concert. Even though they stuck mainly to their mainstream songs, they were still able showcase their range of musical talents. And Ryan Miller's stage banter is hilarious.

Talking about playing in the Carrier Dome, he joked, "this is the most anticlimactic climactic walk on stage ever," since his excitement at playing in the dome disappeared when he realized that the stage was set up on one far end.

After playing their song "Red Oyster Cult," Guster switched to a cover of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult, complete with cowbell.

Miller put Auto-Tune technology (made famous by T-Pain) on his mic, and sang in the electronic voice: "This is T-Pain...I love rap music...I love college...Hakeem Olajuwon..." The last two are references to Slope Day performer Asher Roth's hit single. Trust me, it was funny.

Opening the six-minute ballad "Ruby Falls," Miller sang the first line as "Tonight...where can we go from here" instead of "where do we go from here," an accidental and minor mistake which drew an immediate reaction from Guster nerds like us. It's nice to know that even after 15 years of touring, these guys still make mistakes.

And the sign-off: "We love you, orange people!"

I'm a little jealous that so many other colleges have brought Guster to campus, but not Cornell. Back when Facebook maintained a network demographics page, Guster was usually around #7 on the list of Cornellians' favorite musical groups. I have no doubt that the CCC would be able to sell a lot of tickets.