Tuesday just wasn't any Tuesday.
It was Super Tuesday, Fat Tuesday and, in Tucson, Super Duper Furry Animal Tuesday.
The latter was celebrated inside Club Congress when Super Furry Animals appeared on stage.
Singer Gruff Rhys wore a red Mighty Morphin Power Rangers helmet and a blue blanket as a cape, singing opener "Slow Life" off 2004's "Phantom Power."
The Super Furry Animals are kind of like the Welsh answer to The Flaming Lips, and despite attracting a crowd of about 200, the group was truly slumming it at Congress.
The decade-plus veteran space-rock act has always attracted a larger audience outside the United States and is set to headline The Green Man Festival in the UK in August. Previous headliners have included the likes of Robert Plant, Joanna Newsom and Calexico.
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Put it this way: It's rare that a band playing Congress has an onstage guitar technician.
It's puzzling why an act with such a diverse sound — spacey psych-pop in every shade imaginable — couldn't truly break the States.
Guitarist Huw "Bunf" Bunford told the Star in January the lack of a singular sound could be the Achilles' heel for the group, but Super Furry also came of age before blog hype and the Internet shone a light on every new band out of Davenport, Iowa.
Tuesday night, Super Furry didn't seem like its mission was winning over new fans. There wasn't a swell of energy from the get-go, with the tone more akin to a veteran act settling into a groove and just enjoying itself.
Some oldies were tossed in, but the majority of the five-piece's set was from 2008's "Hey Venus!," the band's return to short, energetic pop songs for its new label, Rough Trade Records.
Yet the highlight of the night was "Receptacle For The Respectable" from 2001's "Rings Around The World."
The multipart rocker, complete with acoustic to electric guitar midsong changes, had a breakdown in which Rhys began chewing full-size, Bugs Bunny-like carrots into the microphone as a sound effect, only to spit a mouthful out on the stage at the song's climax.
This might be the kind of stuff that turns some away.
But for every oddball quirk, Super Furry can launch into a tune like "Hello Sunshine," a song so gorgeous someone like James Blunt would kill for it.
Super Furry closed with an abbreviated version of "Keep The Cosmic Trigger Happy," off 1999's "Guerrilla."
For the song, Rhys again donned the red Power Rangers mask and rocked out on a red guitar, before placing a "The Ende" sign on the drum kit.
If this is the fate of a veteran band while touring a foreign country that never really warmed up to it, you can't help but feel anything other than jealousy.
