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Modest Mouse’s Brooklyn Bowl return by the numbers

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Brock, far right, and Modest Mouse, performing at Brooklyn Bowl on June 3.
Photo: Erik Kabik

21 Months since the Washington state indie rockers last played Las Vegas after going eight years between visits to town before that.

100 Approximate number of tickets unsold Saturday night, marking another strong showing by the band’s Vegas fanbase, which filled the venue to capacity in 2015. Wonder how a Modest Mouse residency would do here …

6 Repeat numbers in Saturday’s 20-song setlist—expected hits “Float On,” “Dashboard” and “Lampshades on Fire,” plus catalog cuts “This Devil’s Workday” and “Satin in a Coffin” and, surprisingly, oldie “Custom Concern.” Whether or not leader Isaac Brock specifically looked over 2015’s 21-song Vegas setlist to avoid duplication or it just happened naturally, the band did an excellent job rewarding repeat customers, who heard 35 unique tunes between the two Brooklyn Bowl concerts.

7 Minutes of bouncy bliss when throbbing 2000 favorite “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes”—one of the Mouse’s all-time showstoppers—made a welcome mid-set appearance, its first in Vegas in a decade.

1 Tour performances of “Custom Concern” and “Breakthrough”—two cuts off 1996 LP This Is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About—thus far in 2017, both of them here in Vegas Saturday night.

1 Times Brock false-started a song (“Breakthrough”), noted that his guitar was out of tune and was instantly handed a new, properly tuned instrument by a member of the road crew. Time lost in the whole episode: less than 30 seconds.

4 Songs in a strong, 20-plus-minute encore that felt more like a mini second set: “Custom Concern,” “Cowboy Dan,” “Float On” and “Never Ending Math Equation.” Sandwiched between raucous versions of two of the band’s most beloved ’90s holdovers—the haunting “Cowboy Dan” and the howling “Never Ending Math Equation”—”Float On,” Modest Mouse’s biggest chart success, felt fairly perfunctory at the end of a night that was anything but.

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