Modest Mouse

As this summer approached, indie music was roaring into a new world of popularity and possible selloutdom. Lollapalooza had been overrun by indie acts: Morrissey, the Flaming Lips, Wilco, the Pixies and Modest Mouse (below). Modest Mouse's first new album since 2000 had left fans tapping their feet to the tune of "about damn time." The band split with drummer Jeremiah Green before it could complete the new album, titled Good News for People Who Love Bad News. But in the weeks since its release, the album has gone gold, peaked at number eighteen on the Billboard 200 and made Modest Mouse a minor sensation. Then Green rejoined the band, and everything was just peachy. What could go wrong? Apparently an indiepalooza couldn't sell enough tickets, and the entire rowdy assemblage was cancelled. Leave it to a bunch of self-made indie bands to tour anyway. One by one, with Modest Mouse leading the way, the icons rebooked their respective summers. If Good News is any indication, frontman Isaac Brock and comrades are readying a show that can satisfy both heard-them-first types and the unnumbered newbies they reached this year on MTV. The new sound is noticeably refined, but Brock still sounds like a desperate, if slightly more stable, twenty-something. It would have been quite interesting to see Modest Mouse rabble-rousing a crowd of 15,000 at Coors Amphitheater, but you can't beat a veteran act at a new height in the much more intimate Fillmore.