Watching a scrappy little band climb up the ranks of the rock and roll clubs can be a bit of an emotional roller coaster. We, as music fans, develop these ridiculously intimate connections with bands over the course of their careers, and seeing them playing bigger venues and finding ourselves pushed to the back of the crowd, paying more for tickets, more for beers, and more for parking can serve to drive a wedge right in the middle of that lifeline.

Over the past two years, Philadelphia's Dr. Dog have gone from playing the Tractor Tavern to the Crocodile and now have found themselves bumped up to the bigs, playing at the 1500 person capacity Showbox Sodo (surprisingly skipping over Neumos or Showbox at the Market in the process). Given that I haven't heard Dr. Dog in a Gap's in-store playlist or seen them prominently featured in a trailer for the new Judd Apatow film, I was a little befuddled by the choice of venue, and walking into Showbox Sodo on Friday night (after finding a parking spot directly across the street from the venue. Score!) and judging on the comfortably half-full room, it would be easy to say that it was an unfortunate booking choice. However, everything about Dr. Dog's current show says they'll have no problems packing rooms of this size in the near future.