Whilst me and a few American compatriots were carousing around in the many different cafés of Prague, we happened to stumble upon a flier. "Smog!" one said. "Wow, I always miss them when they come to Chicago!" exclaimed another. "Yeah…" I replied, hoping they wouldn't ridicule me for not knowing Smog. Then through their conversation, I picked out key phrases like "quintessential indie rock from Chicago" and "wow, I really like them." Uh oh. Now I must look really dumb.

Back at our penzion, they played me a few songs. And I liked them. So off to Smog it was.

Now, whatever reason that Smog had for touring Europe and stopping by Prague while I was here, I have no idea. But due to laziness I missed seeing the Mars Volta and the original lineup for Black Sabbath a week earlier. D'oh. I wasn't going to miss this show, even if I had no idea who this band was.

Okay, now onto the show. It was at this place called Palac Akropolis, which had a decently sized stage for Smog to play on. There were no openers. That frustrated me, because I was interested in seeing some Czech groups rock, but hey, whatevs, yo. Bill Calahan and crew took the stage, and stole our hearts.

To describe Smog is slightly difficult. Imagine a nice guy version of Leonard Cohen fronting a country-twinged indie rock group that fully embraces dynamics but rarely strays from its repetitive, droning song structure that serves as the perfect device for Bill to deliver his keynote baritone over, playing with lyrical rhythms and whatnot. Verbose? Probably. Necessary? Probably. Spot on, 100% correct? Probably not. But that's the best I can do.

They played what seemed to be a good amount from the new record A River Ain't Too Much In Love (I looked up the song titles after the show). I know I for sure heard "Drinking At The Dam," "In The Pines," and "I Feel Like The Mother Of The World." They also played my favorite song by them (meaning it was the only one I could remember from the LP that they played me before the show), "Cold Blooded Old Times." Then they played other songs too, totaling a little over an hour's worth of music. And it was great, start to finish.

If Bill's voice and guitar plucking weren't enough to drag you in, the drummer was the most amazing drummer I've seen live. He fully embraced the use of sticks, jazz sticks, mallets, and brushes, integrating them all as he built solid foundations for every song and wowing me with every little fill. The guitarist and bass player (sorry, couldn't find anyone else's names!) were standardly good, but nothing special. It's clear that last night's performance was a dialogue between Bill and the drummer.

So yeah, Smog was pretty damn sweet live, but if you don't have patience for long, repetitive songs, then don't go see them.