The folks at Rhapsody sure know how to throw a birthday party. For the hundreds of lucky guest who attended the streaming music giant's 10th anniversary celebration at the Showbox, it was a night filled with drinks, reunited musicians, regretful photo booth pictures & face melting guitar solos.

Things got started around 7:30 when a line began to form outside the venue of eager scenesters waiting for the doors to open. By 8:00 the line stretched around the corner and up Pike and all the way to 2nd street. It was hard to know for certain that everyone who came out would get into the show. After waiting in this line that moved slower than most amusement park lines we finally reached the doors.

Upon entering the venue we noticed a free photography station in the lobby where patrons could get their picture taken. These photographs would then be uploaded into a consistently changing slide show displayed on each of the venue's flat screen TVs. It was the sort of thing you might see at a wedding, only with more flannel. The Rhapsody logo was projected onto each of the walls inside the Showbox giving the party a slightly more professional look than that of a few balloons and party streamers.

The opening act for the evening was a 6 piece 'girl group' named Thao and Mirah. The band was the brainchild of friends Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn & Thao Nguyen (two predominate Bay Area musicians), who partnered together earlier this year to make a record. While the group's 'sound' maybe difficult to pin point, I would label it close to something abstract like, box car delta blues. Think of a rowdier, folksier Tegan and Sara or The Morning Benders and your almost there. The girls grabbed the audience's attention right from the start with a set of foot stomping tunes complete with double doses of percussion intertwined between hints of pedal steel guitar, cellos and violins. To further display a knack of creativity the band also employed a few irregular music instruments including a Wii remote and a song built upon a childish hand clapping jump rope rhyme. For a band that is primarily just a side project, I hope to see at least one more record from Thao and Mirah.

After twenty minutes of take down/set up time, Built to Spill was ready to take the stage. The band immediately jumped into the dark and gloomy barn burner "Traces" off the 2006 stellar album, You in Reverse. The song sounded like the perfect warm up song, by the numbers and with enough guitar noodling to loosen up those fingers. By the time the band started "Virginia Reel Around the Fountain" Doug Martsch and his gang we're in top form, volleying complex guitar licks back and forth with a sorta friendly-but-still-intense ferocity. Not to be overshadowed by the mostly guitar oriented music, bassist Brett Nelson had his moment to shine on the bouncy, light hearten "Else", proving that in this band, everyone plays a crucial part. While the song "Strange" elicited the strongest crowd reaction, fan favorite "Carry the Zero" had sections of the audience playing their own air guitar. If the entire night was indeed a giant birthday party for Rhapsody, then Built to Spill was the proverbial icing on the cake.

Music, and in this case, the way we listen to it, has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. Rhapsody and everything they have built over the last decade is proof of that. But no matter how much the music industry changes there is always one that thing that will stay the same. That euforic feeling we get from watching someone shred the guitar on stage in front of hundreds of smiling fans.