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“Have you seen these guys before?”
“No, this is my first actually. You?”
“This will be my sixth.”
When someones goes to see a band multiple times over in different cities it usually means one of two things: the band is absolutely worth seeing that many times or that particular fan is insane and a complete moron (see any Phish fan ever). From what I gather from my first experience at an Avett Brothers concert, I believe the former takes the cake on this one.
This show was a lot of first for me actually. First Avett concert, first time at the Chicago House of Blues and first real show I’ve been to since my weekend at Lollapalooza (my schedule and bank account blow). Needless to say I was pretty excited to see one of my favorite bands and they did not disappoint. Scott Avett opened the show on the drums to do a much more energized version of “Die, Die, Die” and it was very evident the crowd was into it from the floor actually dipping beneath my feet from jumping.
Once all the technical difficulties of poor Bob Crawford’s bass rig was figured out the set went up and down in terms of the moods of the songs, but the energy remained high the whole time. Slow songs like “The Ballad of Love and Hate” had everyone involved and even the answers given to crowd interjections by Seth Avett showed that even in a big house they could make it a personal show.
Two new songs played off the upcoming album The Gleam II were highlights of the set. “Murdered in the City” was a coy little tune with lyrics like “I wonder which brother is better / Which one our parents loved the most / I sure did get in lots of trouble / They seemed to let the other go” which were paired with small looks from both brothers. The encore number of “My Heart’s Like a Kick Drum” was surprising for me since it was almost more of an old Ben Fold’s 5 tune than the normal Avett folk-punk style.
Little additions to the show like a cello player on a good number of the tunes and guest appearances by tour mates Jessica and David Mayfield made all the difference in filling out the sound, which was especially fun on the set closer “Got To Sleep” where the crowd was left to sing and clap to the “La la…” melody of the song until they came back to finish up the song and do an encore.
Hard to believe the set was two hours long but after the time had passed (and the most broken banjo/guitar strings ever were restrung… poor roadie…) all left smiling, including myself. I’m sure the Avetts will be back soon so I can start adding up the number of their concerts I have attended. Until then, I’ll leave you with a video of “Murdered in the City” (although Seth also sang on the version tonight) so you can get excited for the new album like I am.
i hesitated to write this review for 2 reasons: 1. james has been my favourite band for 14 years, i am in no way impartial, and there is a limit to how many times you can say how awesome an experience is without sounding like the proverbial broken record and 2. the show was pretty damn awesome and special and effervescent and there really are no words. but i decided to suck it up and write something, mainly because the average grunt out there probably doesn’t even know that james is back together (hooray!) and has a stellar new album out (hey ma, 04.07.08) and might even come to the states in august. be still my heart.
anyway, in light of the above disclaimers, i’ll make it short and sweet. i went to london to see james with my best friend zak and it was rad. tim booth is bald now, but he still dances in that crazy shamanistic way, larry gott is still a guitar genius, andy diagram was back with his trumpet wearing a daisy dress on stage. they played almost the whole new album, and tons of older stuff too. although they didn’t play either of their best-known songs ’sit down’ or ‘laid,’ they started with ‘born of frustration,’ ended with ’sometimes (lester pigott)’ and played pretty much everything in between that i could have wished. tim jumped out into the crowd during ‘come home’ and the whole band just generally seemed to be having a great time playing to an audience that loved them.
speaking of, james fans are legendary and there is a very special dynamic that happens between the band and the crowd, trust me. the venue was small enough to keep it intimate, the crowd knew every word to every song and jumped around like the happy idiots we were. i moshed! it was very early 90’s, oh my god. there were people there who came from mexico and portugal and sweden to see james and warm fuzzy feelings of camaraderie abounded for the most part, with the exception of a few ruffians who kept trying to push their way to the front. i pushed back though, so no worries. i screamed myself hoarse, got my piggy toes smooshed by other jumping fans and had a huge grin plastered over my face the entire time…not nearly high enough praise for a night that i seriously will remember the rest of my life. the show ended with the audience stamping their feet and singing the chorus of ’sometimes’ over and over and over as the band stood on stage smiling and enjoying the impromptu appreciation.
so there’s your review. enjoy it. and more importantly, go see james if you ever get a chance. i promise it will be a pretty incredible experience, no matter what kind of music you are into.
ps. my federation opened. not bad, but i was too excited to focus on them. the singer has a lot of hair, though.
They blew the opener, and lived to tell about it. The second of two opening acts didn’t strum his guitar once during his set, and still won over some hearts. It was a night where all’s forgiven in advance, and the obsequious audience had everything to do with it (picture it: the guys all look like Alan Ginsberg (throughout various portions of his career, of course), and the girls were either bookish aerobics leaders, Sharon Tates or modern Emily Dickinsons).
Marla Hansen, violinist of Lekman’s band, opened. She instinctively told the crowd that they were great, but her set had to compete heavily with the white noise of conversation. PIty the opening bands that play the Logan Square Auditorium, because it takes at least two opening acts for hipsters to trade stories about the latest shows they’ve seen, and their favorite band’s side projects.
Theoretically, I have a problem with bands (read: musical acts comprised of at least one person) whose live show consists entirely of hitting ‘play’ on a laptop and singing into a microphone. I guess I’d better get over that old-fashioned hang-up… Honeydrips (aka Mikael Carlsson) has some lovely songs, though it would be nice to engage the audience with something in a live show that a download can’t offer.
By the time the audience was done impressing itself with indie insider-trading, Lekman took the stage with a smaller sortie than in his November appearance, and relied to a heavier degree on the laptop, which wreaked havoc on the set opener ‘I’m Leaving You Because I Don’t Love You.’ But for that blunder, they expiated with a lively ‘Opposite of Hallelujah’, infused by the Chairmen of the Board’s ‘Give Me Just a Little More Time’. Digital gimmickry validated, the band, after an anecdote from Jens about the ’silly’ song he wrote when he was 17, went into the second of their two biggest crowd-pleasers, ‘Black Cab’. This sounds, on paper, like too much too early, but Jens has a lengthy, solid cannon with someone’s favorite song always waiting to be played next. Most of us knew intimately every number in the setlist, so there was no protest to new song ‘New Directions’ about getting lost in Gothenburg. But as hungry for new material as is his audience, the real rejoicing was reserved for oldies but goodies like ‘Maple Leaves’ and ‘You Are The Light’. Nonetheless, it was the material from Kortedala, particularly ‘Nina’ and ‘Shirin’ that made so clear why it is one of the top albums of last year (my personal favorite).
Jens’ act thrived on the intimacy that was not possible at his other big Chicago appearance in Pitchfork, and the verbose audience was particularly attentive when the band left Lekman alone to play ‘Shirin’ and ‘Friday Night at the Drive In Bingo’ before the faux close of the set. If the band was a little desultory (which is not the pejorative it usually is), Jens’ quieter moments confirmed his gifts as a confident songwriter and performer, much more at home with 1,000 people than with one.
Hey Joie!
Can you believe that it was already a week ago that we saw The Magnetic Fields at the Old Town School? Hot damn, that was a good show! We should have started writing that night, but the Hansa Clipper devilishly served us every time we called out for another round…
Some highlights: 1) a set list of which dreams are made, 2) in the only venue apropos to TMF in Chicago (they will only play the Old Town School for a reason), and 3) Claudia… lovely, witty and gregarious and foil to Merritt’s playful indifference.
… to hell with the pieces of the whole, it was all about Merritt’s wry songwriting (already well-documented) and the band’s ability to sensitively and hilariously breathe life into songs that make the broken-hearted laugh at themselves, and young lovers say, “If it has to go wrong, I hope it goes wrong like THIS…”.
[Forward pass to Joie]
I mentioned to someone yesterday that I was really excited about a show later, and they said to me, “You’re going to see those Omaha tap-dancing cuties, aren’t you?”
He knew about this because his friend’s girlfriend was “making him” go to the show. Pshhh. How does that not sound like a good time?
“Tilly and The Wall! You bet.”
They’re touring with Team Love label-mates Capgun Coup and were joined with local A Weather (also on Team Love) last night at Portland’s Doug Fir Lounge.
A Weather was pleasant and absolutely lovely.
It could have been because I was nearly face-to-face with the monitors, but sound ruined what I thought should have been an awesome show from Capgun Coup. The guitar levels were too high and I spent most of the show with a finger in one ear and a grimace on my face. They’re a cool band nonetheless and I recommend them. But moving on to the tap-dancing cuties…
I wish I had pictures of their tap shoes, which I spent a lot of time looking at. Jamie is their main tap-dancer - though no longer their main percussionist, as they have added a drummer to the mix - so she was in the back on a large box. Singers Neely and Kianna use their feet more like tambourine than a drum kit so they were on smaller boxes and were wearing customized blingin’ and flowery taps, respectively.
They played about half new songs, including Urgency and Chandelier Lake, both of which can be downloaded from Daytrotter. They also played their new single, Beat Control, which is not your standard Tilly and maybe is not even a very good song (or video) but live it kept the party going. The newer stuff has the same energy as the old stuff. It wasn’t the kind of show where people get really excited about the songs they know and kind of pout or are bored or whatever during those they don’t. The songs I didn’t know just gave me a break from shouting while I continued to stomp and clap along. (My left ring finger is injured from clapping so emphatically against the ring on my right hand all night. Kick ass.)
The show was pretty satisfying by itself…but then they came back. I would’ve paid my 14.50 just to see the encore. Crowd favorite Lost Girls, followed by Reckless and Nights of the Living Dead from Wild Like Children. A crescendo of “I wanna fuck it up…I wanna fuck it up…and I feel so alive and I feel so alive and I feel…” and it’s over.
Tilly and the Wall are more than their shtick. If you get a chance, go see them and be ready to let the beat control you…and take off your rings.
Sat 03.08.08 Omaha, NE Waiting Room w/ Family Radio
Sun 03.16.08 Atlanta, GA Drunken Unicorn w/ Capgun Coup
Mon 03.17.08 Carrboro, NC Local 506 w/ Capgun Coup, Midtown Dickens
Tue 03.18.08 Washington, DC Rock N Roll Hotel w/ Capgun Coup, Pash
Wed 03.19.08 Philadelphia, PA First Unitarian Church w/ Capgun Coup
Fri 03.21.08 New York, NY Knitting Factory w/ Capgun Coup, Jason Anderson
Sat 03.22.08 Boston, MA Middle East (downstairs) w/ Capgun Coup, Jason Anderson
Mon 03.24.08 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop w/ Capgun Coup
Tue 03.25.08 Chicago, IL Subterranean w/ Capgun Coup, Skybox
Sun 06.08.08 Lawrence, KS Wakarusa Music & Camping Festival
God, it’s been a week already? But my head was clear, and the post-gig notes are mostly legible::::::::::
A five-night hometown residency to play every song in the book… bold. I want to know who managed to pull duty at all five nights, and find out what are their motivations (and connections). But the fourth was good enough for me and my companions, so…
A good parent (neither good nor parent, I… just projecting here) knows not to give a screaming child everything it wants. But sycophantic audiences of 20 to 40-somethings - occasionally more obnoxious than some infants - don’t react well to being denied anything, so Wilco and Jeff Tweedy, rock ‘n roll daddy extraordinaire gave in to our demands on Tuesday night at the Riviera, including free coffee.
The free coffee was for the kids who waited for hours in negative-sixty-degree cold for the doors to open (that’s called ‘negative reinforcement’, right?). And despite issuing a decree against encores, that’s exactly what Tweedy gave the implacable nursery of hipsters when we refused to budge at the end of the 2nd set. But not quite overindulging us… good bartenders, they cut us off at just the right time.
Between pandering to one’s whims and fetishes and the patient satisfaction that the Kama Sutra advocates, Wilco danced with both partners on Tuesday night. The show was aired on WXRT, which usually calls for a safer setlist, but even when it veered towards the predictable it came sideways.
Hard to say exactly what constitutes a ‘deep cut’ for Wilco since every song is someone’s favorite. Opening with ‘Outtasite (Outa Mind)’ isn’t exactly a b-side (and it was granted that they would bookend the night with ‘Outta Mind (Outa Site)’) but we WANTED it! The live debut of Sky Blue Sky’s ‘Leave Me (Like You Found Me)’ was a tiny gem, and seemed more consistent with the band’s mission to play every song they ever recorded. Following-up with ‘Company in my Back’ delivered, unwittingly, the illegal words, “Holy shit,” to the sensitive residents Radioland. Fuckin’ rock’n roll, man.
But the setlist was incidental to the execution of it, even if they didn’t offer anything from Mermaid Ave. Wilco’s songs are deceptively simple, but representing every sound from the discs in a live setting (sans laptop, mostly) is a feat - these tunes are dense. Faithfulness to the arrangements everyone knows was a bigger hit than had they cheated and fallen back on improvised flights to camouflage any on-stage ineptitude. Even ‘California Stars’, which doesn’t have many depths to plumb, was ebullient and chicken-tight, particularly on the vocal harmonies and interplay between Tweedy, bassist John Stirratt and utility infielder Pat Sansone… Tweedy was smiling like he just scored touchdowns (but, wait - he doesn’t believe in touchdowns… never mind) and that from the most basic song in the band’s cannon. Fierce highs, pin-drop lows… Wilco doubles as the loudest and most dynamic band around (I acquiesce, of course, that the conquerors of the straight-up LOUD department are Matt’s picks, but that’s an entirely different kind of flying, all together).
We all gave each other a little ‘aw-shucks’ look when Tweedy beamed that Chicago-love has spoiled the rest of the tour. Nevertheless, the tour is still young and may be coming near you. Go, even if they don’t promise to give you every song they ever wrote.
2-26, 27: Washington DC
2-29: Charleston, SC
3-02: Nashville, TN
3-03: Mobile, AL
3-04, 05: New Orleans, LA
3-07: Houston, TX
3-08: Tulsa, OK
3-09: Des Moines, IA
