I said I was going to do this more often, so here it is. First show of the year for 2010 was the lovely Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, at the Metro last week. Really an excellent show. She played almost all of her most recent album "Actor". I think she only left out "Neigbors". She also played many of the highlights from "Marry Me".
Best moments of the show for me were Marrow, which actually stuck pretty closely to the album version, and Save Me From What I Want. I'm pretty sure she played a solo version of Paris is Burning, but I'll admit that the whole night isn't crystal clear, and I may remember that from reading about her playing it at another show. It was almost a week ago, and I met someone out for a couple drinks before the show (also why we missed the opener), so things are a bit fuzzy. She finished the night off with a tremendous version of Your Lips Are Red, which descended into a cacophony of angular fuzz guitars, piano, and horns before flowing into the laid back major key ending. Kind of reminds me of a river flowing through a very rocky rapids before emptying into a wide, calm valley. Really a great way to end the show. Pictures and a vid below (vid not from the show, obviously).
So I haven't really been doing concert reviews or recaps lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been going to shows. August was a little on the slow side in the wake of the Pitchfork Festival, but September has been picking it back up. In the last week or so, we had three really great shows.
I finally saw J. Spaceman for the first time at P-fork, and that show was essentially the hour long outdoor version of their regular show, so the set was pretty similar, only about a half hour or forty minutes longer. Most of the extra time was taken up by older material, which I particularly enjoyed since I didn't see any of the shows in support of those albums.
The P-fork set made appearances here and there, mostly in a good way. He again opened with 'You Lie You Cheat', which devolves into noise, then cuts beautifully into 'Shine A Light', from the Laser Guided Melodies album. He finished the set, again, with 'Come Together' from Ladies and Gentlemen.... which segued into the old Spacemen 3 tune 'Take Me to the Other Side'. Added in along the way were some new songs (Death Take Your Fiddle), some Spiritualized classics ('Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space', 'Lay Back in the Sun') and another Spacemen 3 number (either 'Walkin' With Jesus' or 'Sound of Confusion', depending on what album you have). He ended the night with a rousing rendition of 'Lord Can You Hear Me'.
Their live set, at least indoors is very loud and engrossing. You've heard the phrase "wall of sound". Well, this is an ocean of sound, and you're drowning in it. It just absolutely engulfs the entire venue. The pacing was pretty good. The two songs that start this set really draw you in. There's little to no crowd rapport, not even a "thank you" between songs, though I think he said it on the way out. It's really quite an experience. An excellent live show, and one I hope I get the chance to see again.
You Lie You Cheat
Take Me To The Other Side (Live)
Grand Ole Party opened. I saw them open for someone earlier this year as well. Three piece band with a female drummer, who also handles lead vocals. She's got quite a voice. Entertaining act. The Walkmen @ Metro 9/12/08
This is the third or fourth time I've seen them in the last year and a half, so it's been interesting to see them go from supporting "A Hundred Miles Off" to trying out some new material, to eventually supporting that material, most of which appears on the new album "You and Me". It's an album that didn't really grab me at first, certainly not as quickly as the last one, but after five or six listens, it's really grown on me and might be my favorite album yet.
The set lasted a little under an hour and half, which is probably the longest set I've seen them do. The set was heavy on the album, and light on everything else. They played the classics. 'Wake Up', 'Little House of Savages', 'Thinking of a Dream I Had'. They played some songs that are much better live than on the record, like 'All Hands and the Cook', and 'What's In It For Me'. The new album has a lot of horn parts, so they were able to play 'Louisiana'. And they proved again that 'The Rat' is the best four minutes of live music on the planet.
But the new album really made up the meat of the show, and fortunately, it's a really good album for a live show. It's got some slower tracks that help round out the pacing, but the standouts from the album were the standouts in the live set. 'Donde Esta La Playa', 'On the Water', 'the Blue Route', 'Canadian Girl' all delivered. The crowd seemed fairly familiar with the new material, as loud cheers went out upon hearing the opening strums of 'In the New Year', the first single and a real highlight of the show.
As usual, the Walkmen, more than any other band I've seen a bunch of time, are more than worth the price of admission. Along with the Super Furry Animals, they're probably may favorite act currently in existence, and their live shows are really terrific. The opening acts were pretty interesting too. Ezra Furman and the Harpoons were kind of a straightforward pop-rock four piece with a funny frontman, and klezmer-rock six piece Golem were, well, something I wouldn't expect to see at a rock show, and something I'd even less expect to like, but they put on a very entertaining set. No complaints.
Small crowd, but Monday night shows aren't typically heavily attended, especially for lesser known acts like the Broken West. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a great show. I saw these guys open for the Walkmen last year, and I've seen them another four times since, and they always put on a good set. They released a new album last week, their second, so the set drew heavily from that, but they worked in some favorites from the first album as well. This is the type of show where you can hang around and chat with the band afterward, so that's kind of fun. I try to wait to buy albums at shows if possible, because I think they get a bigger piece of the pie. This is an L.A. based band, around Silverlake I believe, so it's nice to support local acts from my hometown.
A band called the Builders and the Butchers opened for them. They're kind of folky, but really heavy themes. Lost of death and afterlife sorts of stuff. Like if the Decemberists were a little harder and sang a lot of dirges. But the music is really engaging. I usually need to listen to an album a few times before it connects, but I was digging their debut on first listen. I was wearing a t-shirt from the Moose's Tooth, a pizzeria and brew pub in anchorage. The lead singer saw it started up a conversation about Alaska. Turns out half this band is from Anchorage, and a couple went to the school where my brother used to teach. Small world.
So it's the 31st anniversary of the formation of one of the most influential punk bands ever, L.A.'s seminal X. I saw them a few years ago when they played the House of Blues. It was the first time I'd seen the original lineup, though I've seen John Doe play solo a few times and he usually throws a couple of X songs into his solo sets.
This was the fourth or fifth show of their current tour. They took the stage a little after 10:30 and played for about an hour and 15 minutes. I'll cop to never having seen their shows when they were actually producing new music (I was just a little kid), but the amount of energy they bring to their live shows can't have been much greater back then. They were a little sloppy at times, probably because they had such a long set list. It's easy to lose your place on the page when you've got 20 songs listed. Exene Cervenka chalked it up to being "new at this". But there's nothing more fun that watching Billy Zoom, wide stanced and almost motionless, standing there with a huge grin on his face while delivering some of the most complex guitar work found on any punk record. From Buddy Siegal in the OC Weekly:
Dave Alvin, the former Blasters' axe man who ultimately replaced Zoom, is a renowned guitar hotshot in his own right, but he soon learned that stepping into Zoom's cowboy boots was no easy task. "I was amazed when I had to actually sit down and learn 32 songs in two weeks," says Alvin. "How Billy Zoom put his parts together was amazing. For a three-piece band, his orchestration on guitar was really tremendous. They were almost mathematically perfect arrangements. Billy likes tinkering with machines and electronics, and in some ways, his guitar parts are put together like schematics. I'm more of a primitive. I lack that kind of technique, and Billy was very, very advanced. I learned a lot; my guitar playing improved a lot after I had to sit down and learn all of his parts. There's a part of me that's forever in his debt, from having my Billy Zoom guitar lessons. A lot of punk bands-a lot of any bands-don't have these kind of intelligent guitar parts. That guy is really good."
Decide for yourself in the samples below. Here's the incomplete and out of order setlist (they played at least six or seven more songs than this - probably closer to ten):
Once Over Twice
We're Desperate
In This House That I Call Home
White Girl
Back to the Base
Your Phone's Off the Hook, But You're Not
Johnny Hit and Run Paulene
Soul Kitchen
Nausea
Los Angeles
The New World
True Love
Hungry Wolf
Motel Room in my Bed
Because I Do
Riding With Mary
Blue Spark
The Unheard Music
I was pretty stoked that they played Blue Spark. That's one of my favorite X songs, and they didn't play it the last time I saw them. Aside from that, you always expect to hear Hungry Wolf, Los Angeles, and White Girl, and they didn't disappoint last night. Here are those three (though the Hungry Wolf video is missing the beginning for some reason - also, give White Girl about a minute twenty before the song actually starts):
This is for the Thursday, 10/18 show at the Metro. Due to my inability to read a calendar, I also have a ticket for tomorrow night's show (10/19), but I won't be going due to the Raveonettes being in town. Anyway:
The most awesomest part of the evening was seeing the lineup take the stage. I wasn't even sure if Neko Case would be on the tour. She usually is when they play their main Chicago show, but she's got her own deal, and Kathryn Calder can pick up the slack, as she did at Pitchfork. But Neko played, and that wasn't even the best part. The band was in Full Bejar tonight. Wasn't sure I'd ever see another set with him, but apparently he's on this tour. Dan Bejar is pretty freaking awesome, though I don't think he was too jazzed about the Metro being smoke free.
Honestly, I've heard them play a little tighter. After the first Bejar song (Myriad Harbor, I think, but that could be wrong), Carl Newman's vocals sounded a little off for some reason, probably mic related. Also, he forgot the words to part of song early in the set. Can't remember which one (it's not like I take notes or anything). Still, they know how to entertain. So even at less than their best, they're still fantastic.
Speaking of Kathryn Calder, she really provides a nice visual distraction. Not that Neko is anything to sneeze at, but Kathryn Calder is really enjoyable to look at. I was about 10 feet from the stage, more or less in the middle of the room, and by the time NP went on, I had maneuvered into an area where I could see the whole stage, except for maybe Todd Fancey.
I'm not really one for a lot of audience participation. I like to move around a bit and enjoy the beat, and sometimes I'll sing along quietly to myself, but I don't usually go in for stuff like handclapping and whatnot. But I've go to admit, I clapped along to Spirit of Giving in the "Cloud prayer Mary, come on" part. I just got caught up in the total Bejarness of the evening.
Emma Pollock was really good, and I'll probably be downloading or buying her debut CD at some point. I never really listened to the Delgados, but I like her solo stuff a lot. And she's got a bitchin Scottish accent.
Here's the incomplete and out of order setlist. They opened with "All things...." and the last three songs in the setlist are in order. That was the encore:
All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth
Mass Romantic
Electric Version
The Laws Have Changed
Testament to Youth in Verse
Twin Cinema
Use It
Bleeding Heart Show
Jackie Dressed in Cobras
Sing Me Spanish Techno
My Rights Vs. Yours
All the Old Showstoppers
Challengers
Myriad Harbor
Go Places
Adventures in Solitude
Spirit of Giving
Execution Day
From Blown Speakers
My Slow Descent into Alcholism
Personal disappointments include failures to play Graceland, Ballad of A Comeback Kid, and everyone always wants to hear Letter From an Occupant. Also, any additional Bejar would have been appreciated. Oh, and Mutiny I Promised You. But it's tough to complain about an hour and half set, and 20 songs. They always give everyone their money's worth.
