Sold-out shows are a buzzkill, because being elbow-jockeyed by a trebillion tipsy hipsters is not my idea of a good time, and besides, what are all these hairdos doing loving my band?

This was my mindset, unfortunately, through the first three or so numbers that opened The Antlers’ show at Bowery Ballroom Tuesday night. So while the haunting strains of “Thirteen” washed over the room, I did not bathe in one goddamned bit of their beauty; I didn’t even take pause to dork out over the fact that THERE WAS SHARON VAN ETTEN SINGING EIGHT FEET AWAY!!

When a loose transition was made into “Kettering” — a song of bone-shaking impact, which someone recently described (I can’t remember where I read it) as a song that’ll make you want to go out and change the world — all I wanted to do was go out for a smoke (metaphorically), and silently I snickered at the crowd for standing so quietly during the between-song changeover, assuming their rapt attention must some herdlike mentality.

And during “Sylvia” — well, “Sylvia” was what finally made me realize what a flibbertygibbet I was being and maybe I should just stay put where I am and shut the fuck up in the head. “Sylvia,” to me, is like The Antlers making love to My Morning Jacket’s “Gideon,” which is weird, I know, but very satisfying.

The Antlers’ set lasted less than a dozen songs long yet endured for ninety minutes plus. Though the band has been performing extensively (lead singer and guitarist Peter Silberman called 2009 “the best year of my life“), this show is already going down in history as one of their best ever. Wish you coulda been there, folks, and wish that I had managed to soak it in all the more.

Luckily, I shook off all traces of my hag cloak in time for the angelic seven-and-a-half minute epic that was “Two.” The best performance of my year, by far.