The Official ACL Blog for like Eight People!
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I have been a failure at reviewing some of the live shows I went to around this year's ACL, I think I got behind on the preparation for the Festival and so I failed to get these together. I may not give much data on some of these, but I wanted to make sure to review this show because it was so perfectly amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKuQGo2iXx0 [damn website won't let me embed right now, but you can see there what it looked like as he talked up the crowd and goofed around]
The Hives are not a household name. The band name honestly sounds kinda gross. But they are a Swedish garage rock band who I loved back in around 2002 or 2003 or 2004, when I had one of their CDs and would jam it all the time in my sweet diesel Jetta as I cruised around Waco. Sort of White Stripes vibes? Well, the reason that this show was so fun was two-fold: the lead singer hamming it up like crazy, and the unhinged and joyful power of the songs themselves. The lead singer, Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, stalked around the stage, swinging the microphone by its chord frequently, saying weird ass pronouncements like "The Hives are your favorite band" or "You have never seen a show so powerful before" in a great accent. The stage decoration and lighting was extremely basic, but his antics made it feel like there was a fun show going on up there. And the tunes freaking jammed - it's not smart stuff, you aren't at a Decemberists show here - but they were fast and loud and catchy as hell. I took a friend who had never even heard of them before and he loved the show. Great times, I would absolutely go again.
This was a weird one. If you have followed along here, then you know that I freaking love the QOTSA. Heavy and hard while still remaining tuneful and catchy. I've seen them at least three times before, and their last ACL taping was a damn revelation to me. But you could tell that this one was going to be different when you walked into the theater and the stage was set with a TON of equipment. Two drum sets with lots of extra bits. Multiple organ/synths. A semi-circle of chairs with music stands in front of them. A piano covered in candles (likely fake, couldn't tell). The floor was a seating area - never seen that at a taping before. And then the initial announcement solidified that notice, with the announcer coming out and explaining the following: the show was going to be split into three sections with short musical interludes in between; please do not make any sudden movements in the audience and try to use the restroom only during the interludes; be in your seat by 8 for the start or else you'd have to wait to come in until the first interlude. Definitely different.
LOL. My friend who hooked me up with the tickets just sent the pre-show communication, which he claims he did not read beforehand, which says this for "attire" for the show: "Dress with a sense of the occasion. That being the afterlife, the undead. Immortal chic have you. You'll want to be dressed as good as the music will sound." WTF man. Did AI write that? And if I would have known, I could have gone full Dracula!
And then the show started - sort of - by a recording of crickets popping up in the darkness. After a while, some creaking was added into that (whether that was a hanging rope with a body at the end of footsteps, not sure). And finally, a tolling bell. No music or really lighting has happened, and we are like 3 minutes into the show. Finally, Josh Homme comes out from the audience, grabs one of those workshop lights where the back is shrouded in orange plastic and the bulb just blares light out the other side, and starts singing a cappella with that light thrust into his own face. After a few lines, the band started slowly making their way on stage and joining in to "Paper Machete," as Homme started wandering into the audience and meandering around the stage. It was very theatrical, very The Queens Take Broadway or that weird vampire puppet play from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. But I was honestly entranced. Sucked me right in to the campy theater of it all.
This will get you an idea of what it felt like - the solo start and then adding in other instrumentation:
Supposedly, at the time they were filming this, Homme was in dire need of treatment for cancer and was in bad pain, but they really wanted the opportunity to perform in these Paris catacombs so he gutted it out.
The set definitely leaned into the newer albums, and when they picked a track from an older album (that I knew better) it was usually one of the slower, introspective tunes that sounded great with the horn and string sections that showed up after the first few songs. Like, "Mosquito Song," the album closer from my fav, Songs for the Deaf, is already a semi-acoustic oddball with some orchestral flourishes, so it made good sense for that to be part of the set here in their goth vampire mode. But it meant we didn't get any of the hits.
And that was my main beef here, because I went into this experience with earplugs in hand, ready to have my face melted with the heavy riffage that attracted me to these dudes in the first place. And this show was very freaking cool - like nothing I have seen before! But the thought that I had this morning on my dog walk that it was like going to get your favorite burger, and then instead giving you the best turkey burger patty you've ever had. That turkey burger could be legitimately great, but when you were wanting your favorite cheeseburger, it will feel like a disappointment.
Oh, and one other quibble that most of what Homme said was dumb as shit. I was cringing either because it was dime-store ass philosophy garbage like "the fragility of the human soul is something I am considering now, and the methods we retain that soul despite the crushing despair of" blah blah blah. That was not actually one of his riffs, I wasn't writing them down, but they were all pretty brutal. And then some lady yelled out that she loved him, and he told her his room number and seemed genuinely to want her to come to his room to get it on. Like I said, weird.
But another bit of schtick that he was doing that was genuinely funny - he had a meat cleaver that he was carrying around, tossing in the air, and brandishing towards audience members from only inches away. He wandered the audience a bit, at one point sitting in a guy's lap and chugging part of his cocktail. Those bits made it pretty darned fun. And overall, even with the odd gothic re-framing of these songs, it was a really good show and a fun experience I am so glad to have had.
Probably too late to get in on it, but apparently they are doing the same show at Bass Concert Hall tonight. Get get amongst it.
I literally told someone the other day that I had no shows coming up, and here I am on a three show bender.
Before I talk about this particular show, I have to tell about the last time we went to one of Robert Earl's holiday shows. Because it makes me laugh, at the expense of my lovely wife. Some friends hit us up about going to see the REK Holiday show, and my wife was very excited. She loves the holidays and really loves to jam Christmas music throughout the whole season. Like, when we hit the road after Thanksgiving lunch, and my scrooge ass will allow it, she's got the radio cranking out some Nat King Cole. So, with that in mind, she was psyched about a show of Robert Earl King singing all of the classics, and was really looking forward to a carol sing-along.
What we did not know is that this was just a regular ass REK show, where he would be certain to play "Merry Christmas from the Family" and probably "Feliz Navidad," but that otherwise we were just going to hear the normal stuff. She was soooooo sad. I loved it though! Haha.
So, you may remember from my last post about REK, we got to go see one of his "final" shows when he was "for sure" "totally" retiring from touring "forever." And so, we spent more than we should, and got there super early to squeeze up to the stage, and hung on every song choice and lyric. Now, like everyone else before him, he "just missed seeing his people so darned much" and he's back out on the road. He looks awful too - whatever medical malady is keeping him stuck in his chair has made him skinny as hell and walking like Earl Campbell.
BUT, you never went to see Robert Earl Keen because you wanted someone to dance around or sing like Josh Groban. You went to hear him bleat out some of the greatest songs ever written. And he freaking delivered in spades. "Gringo Honeymoon," "Feelin' Good Again," and "Dreadful Selfish Crime" were all in the first handful of songs, and they sounded glorious. "I'm Comin' Home" and "Corpus Christi Bay" were great, and of course we got "Road Goes On Forever" and "Merry Christmas from the Family" for everyone to yell along with, as they should. He also played THREE Christmas songs, not including the weird little campfire jam session his band did while he went offstage to get a handjob.
Three tiny quibbles:
"I Gotta Go" sucks. That song is dumb as crap, and it feels like he just realized that people would like to sing the title of it over and over, so he just filled in some crap around it.
The crowd was yakking it up THE WHOLE TIME and it was very annoying. I don't need people to treat it like a violin concerto at Carnegie Hall or anything, but it was really distracting when quiet moments were happening on stage to hear the roar of folks chatting it up.
He randomly changed some words, but purposefully. He missed some lines as well, which I guess is just old age or whatever, but like in "I'm Goin' to Town," instead of "Saturday night" he kept singing that its a "beautiful night." It doesn't really matter, but it just bugged me. Those aren't the damn words!
Totally recommend the show though. Definitely a fun part of the Christmas season. I would have loved it to have been even longer!
This was an entirely unexpected show. A friend from out of town pinged me on Saturday morning with the offer of a free ticket. In a strange confluence of events, he was flying in from France, where he had been for work, planning to hit this show by some hipster Brooklyn weirdos who are not French at all (despite the name). Buncha Rhode Island School of Design dudes being odd for the fun of it. They have never been on my radar at all, but he sent me some stuff about them and it was interesting enough to go for it.
As you can see in that video, the lead singer is super freaking intense. He spent half the show in the crowd, bopping around and tangling his microphone cord all over everyone. I got to touch him a few times, which I'm sure was a thrilling experience for him, and I helped untangle his cord a time or two (if you know what I mean). The tunes were fun, a little more post-hardcore/arty stuff than just straight indie, and yet their music has appeared in lots of random places - True Blood, College Hoops 2K video game, Grand Theft Auto 4, NHL 2k8? Eclectic list. That song above was featured in the True Blood episode, and the episode was even named after it. Was a little like a noisier, more abrasive Strokes. It was a good time, even if I don't think that I will be adding their studio albums to my rotation.
I have been waiting to see these dudes for almost a decade. Many years ago, a baseball writer who I followed sent out a newsletter/e-mail thing that I would devotedly read each week. This writer was great in part because he didn't just stick to baseball. He also talked about music, and board games, and books, and other random ephemera. Which made it significantly more fun to read his stuff. He turned me on to the Beths! And he also brought up this band, a little quartet from France, who make a very appealing sound like a post-grunge rock and roll band. You'd never know they were French.
Definitely guitar-forward, but catchy as all hell. Anyway, I follow them on Instagram and so I saw an announcement when they were going to come to Austin. I talked a friend into going with me, and it was all set.
I'm sure I have been to a smaller show before, but if so, I can't recall it. At one point, I glanced around and counted that there were 27 people total in the room. Which made me terribly sad. That these guys had flown all the way over to Texas to play their asses off, and no one was even there to hear it. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing them play it all live, but just never could shake the feeling of sadness I had for them. Maybe they didn't care and were totally fine with it, but my mind couldn't quit worrying over their feelings at looking out at an empty room of a handful of folks politely bobbing their heads along with the tunes. Too bad, really. I like their new album a lot too!
When one of your favorite bands ever is coming to town, you gotta make it happen, right? Night one of this two-night stand in Austin was so much fun. And then night two fell into my lap when a good friend ended up with an extra ticket. The wife thinks I'm a nutjob for going back a second night, but I loved it.
The thing with a band like this is that I want a setlist that would disappoint a big chunk of the audience. I want it to be all songs from the first three albums, plus the two off of the Singles soundtrack, and then I'm in hog heaven. But they aren't going to do that - in part because they are likely proud of their new tunes, but also because there are people in the crowd who think Lightning Bolt is their best album or leaving without seeing "Dance of the Clairvoyants" is a loss.
BUT - they still did a lot of what I wanted - 9 songs from those first three discs for first night, including some definite favorites like "Elderly Woman," "Alive," and "Porch." I straight up teared up during "Elderly Woman," I don't know how to control my emotions when a room of ten thousand plus is yelling "I just want to scream, "Hello" / My god, it's been so long, never dreamed you'd return / But now here you are, and here I aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam." I am literally getting goosebumps again as I write about it now. Freaking awesome.
Second night, we again got 9 songs from those albums, but it leaned more towards Ten, which I dug. We got "Black" and "Jeremy," which were unexpected treats for sure. Also unexpected - five cover songs! I like a good cover, but night one they did one single cover, and then fired up five last night. It included "Imagine," which was super rad. Also, we got "State of Love and Trust," as well as the imminently yellable "Rearviewmirror." Never cried at night two, but I was definitely in my feels while singing the hell out of "Jeremy."
They do a weird thing, in that the show starts out with a quiet song and all of the band members sitting down. So, I'm all geeked up and ready for them to tear into "State of Love and Trust" or something similar, and they do the sad ass "Nothingman" or a newer song I don't know, while sitting on stools. C'mon! Put the low-key interlude in the middle after I've worked up a sweat! Bring the thunder!
Despite not knowing half of the songs, just a fabulous show. This tour is over, but if you get the chance someday, you should definitely do it.
If you read my blog regularly - thanks to you wonderful few! - then you know that I rarely take the time to write a post that is solely about one album. But this one gets that treatment. And because I also need to write up the show I just saw with them, we'll just tuck it all together into one package.
I freaking love the Beths. My wife just recently accused me of a crush, but it isn't just Liz Stokes who I am enamored with, it is the entire group and what I feel when I hear these songs. She walked into the living room last Sunday to find me watching their tiny desk show on the TV through YouTube, and was like "it is so weird that you are just sitting here intently watching this woman sing." But I wasn't just watching her. The whole band has this wonderfully lovely innocence about them, a joy for the music along with a naivety about acting cool on stage or trying too hard. I find it all endearing, and on top of that their music freaking jams.
So, first let's talk about the concert. That is the third time I have gotten to see them play live, and I am seriously contemplating buying tickets to see Death Cab in August just so that I can see The Beths open for them. It helps that I think their first album is their best, and then also love the most recent one, so that whether they are going deep in the catalog or reeling off new tunes, I am pretty happy either way. But their versions of old tunes like "Future Me Hates Me," "You Wouldn't Like Me," "River Run" and "I'm Not Getting Excited" made me want to run through a brick wall of excitement. I listen to those tunes over and over, and so to hear them crisply done by the live band is so very exciting. And then to hear the new tunes again was also badass. The radio has been playing "Silence is Golden" and so it has lodged into my head in a new way that made it even more exciting to yell along to it in a crowd.
I was supposed to see them play during the pandemic, which of course got shoved off. So I watched a few live-stream things that were not nearly as good as a real live show. So glad we are back to real live music!
On top of the great tunes, they also do a great job of minor joking and playful banter among themselves. I've now heard about the bassist's travel blog three different times. Keeps things light and clever versus some straight-forward, no-frills show.
As for the album, I also love it. After the initial streams of it, I thought that I still liked Future Me Hates Me more, but after many more streams, this one could be better. It runs a really fine line of being legitimately rocking and then tenderly tuneful. Bright, sugary, poppy, fun, but also with the edge of real guitars and rhythm section. You get something that sounds like an old REM driving song, like "Head in the Clouds," to something that pummels you a little bit like "Silence is Golden," to a lovely, harmonic love song like "Your Side." Also, when she Liz sings "you know" over and over in "When You Know You Know," I can't help but love the way she pronounces the word "know." "A Passing Rain" builds and throws chugging guitar and fuzzy rips at you in a purely happy way as well.
And lyrically, its top notch at times as well. The lyrics to the title track - Expert in a Dying Field - start like this: "Can we erase our history, Is it as easy as this, Plausible deniability, I swear I've never heard of it, And I can close the door on us, But the room still exists, And I know you're in it." Several of the songs dive right in to that - the breakup, the longing, the sadness. "Love is learned over time, 'til you're an expert in a dying field." Clever and cool as hell. And on top of the band being very good with their respective instruments, you get great harmonies from them underneath Liz. Tracks like "Best Left" or "Change in the Weather" exemplify their skills.
The album, regrettably, shows the lack of popularity with the wider world. Some dumb Juice Wrld track gets a billion streams and yet these guys pour their hearts out and can barely muster a million. The first three songs are generally the hits, and each has more than a million streams. Then the second place track is "When You Know You Know," which I think ought to be the one you hear. 1.8 million streams.
"running down the road to job the memory, like tit for tat, that is you for me." Just a clever little turn of phrase that feels simple and yet perfect.
I feel like you should listen to the album right now, with the lyrics printed out and in hand, and you'll feel it much more deeply than I did the first few listens. Like, the imagery of Stokes only wading ankle deep into the waters on "Knees Deep," as she wrestles with her fear and admiration for the bold. it's so good.
Top notch. You should do what you can to enjoy them when you can. My pure desire is that they could get added to ACL lineup, even though they'll be playing in Austin in August. They can't cost that much! Just make it happen!
Briscoe is a neat little band - formed in part by two dudes who met at the same summer camp where I went approximately 3 million years ago. Some friends got together a big group of people to go check out this show, part of a multi-week residency that the band did at C-Boys this summer. We were legitimately the first people there, lined up outside of this little bar like we were Harry Styles fanboys lined up to get front row. Someone bought a six pack of beer from the 7-11 across the street, and we waited for the doors to open.
I had never been to C-Boys before, but it is a cool venue (just very tight!). The band was set up in the back corner, and some tables ran down the center of the room. I wish we would have had the forethought to snag one of the booths on the far wall, would have made for a nice watching experience, but we just stood in the middle like goobers.
Anyway, they played a nice (although too short) set of original and covers, with good backing and solid harmonies. For a band that I had never even heard mentioned before, it really was a refreshingly wonderful thing to go to a new place and hear a really solid band with a bunch of friends. Highly recommend the experience! I just saw that Briscoe will be playing Antone's in January of 2023, I think you should get tickets and give it a whirl.
This show was a damn long time coming. I don’t even remember when I bought the tickets, but it must have been sometime in 2019. COVID came along and cancelled the initial show, and unlike most other concert tickets I had at that time, these didn’t get refunded, they just pushed the show. They pushed it probably twice more, finally landing in September 2022. Which I promptly forgot about for a long time. And when I remembered, I pinged the guys who had originally alerted me to the show, and none of them wanted to go anymore. WTF, man!
The opener was a bro named Ryley Walker, who was actually
really enjoyable.I didn’t know anything
about him, and like 20 people were on the floor with me during his stripped
down set, but it was legitimately enjoyable.Like a singer/songwriter vibe, but playing more of a soft rock sound rather
than a country thing.Nice little
groove.And completely different from
the sound that was about to come.
Dinosaur Jr were freaking LOUD.Like, holy damn crap they were loud.The loudest show I think I’ve ever been to
was a Diarrhea Planet (RIP) show at the Longbranch Saloon (RIP) many years ago,
where I had to rip labels off of Miller Lite bottles to shove in my ears to try
to save some shred of my hearing.This
show took second place for sure.I ended
up tearing a dollar bill in half to wad up and shove into each of my ears.Seriously so loud.My friend ended up going to the back of the
room, hoping that would help.I stayed
up front like a dope, gamely letting the youths bounce off of my as they
half-heartedly moshed around.
The surprising thing to me is how little of the
Dinosaur Jr catalog I actually know.In
my head, I listened to them all the time back in the day.But in actual practice, I think I really only
listened to 1991’s Green Mind and 1993’s Where You Been, and nothing else.I recognized “Feel the Pain” from the radio, but
otherwise a lot of the songs were first-timers to me as they played them.Which was unexpected.But also really fun – these guys freaking
jam.They feel like it is a good time
for them, just plowing into each track with sloppy, fuzzy abandon.They also covered “Just Like Heaven” for the
final track, and I freaking love that song, so it was a good time!
The news of Robert Earl Keen's retirement hit me in a tough spot. I know that he is considerably older than I am, but still, in my head, I've always kind of conflated that dude with my own self. Just like in his stories, me and my friends sat on the front porch of our house in college and poorly played guitar music. And then I did nothing with that and he sold millions of records. I've dreamed of escaping to Boquillas and lamented my dreadful selfish crime. He's been a constant soundtrack for many moons, and I've seen him play live a number of times. And now he's hanging it up.
If you looked around on the Internet, the stated reason was a unified chorus of - nothing to do with his health, he just wants to spend his time doing something else - and yet, it has since come out that he has terrible back pain that limits his ability to stand for any long period of time. A friend was at the final show at Flore's Country Store and said that he read a prepared statement explaining it all - extreme back pain, body/foot swelling, Bell's palsy. Which just sounds freaking awful. So, I'm glad that he was able to give us all a few more shows before he retires to Kerrville (and hopefully finds some pain relief!).
You could absolutely tell that something wasn't right about the guy during this show. He came out and sat down on a stool, and from my recollection, stood up maybe one time. And when people in the crowd shouted out the usual crap about Aggies or whatever, he just kind of grimaced in his chair and never acknowledged any of the banter like he did on his live album.
But as for the music itself? He sounded great! The new bandmates - especially Noah the guitar and fiddle kid - did an awesome job of picking up where the old bandmates left off. He mostly played a great set of hits and classics, with a few weird new-ish ones thrown in, and getting to see him on the stage at Gruene is a highlight for me as well. Such an iconic spot and the fact that I got to sing along to some of my favorite songs with him just a few feet away was wonderful. "Feelin' Good Again," "Shades of Grey," "Five Pound Bass," "Road Goes On Forever," "Gringo Honeymoon." He freaking killed it.
Final gripe? To me, this was a very special show. The last time REK would ever play Gruene Hall. One of the last five or so shows he would ever play (supposedly). Iconic performer, iconic venue, the whole thing, right? And yet some of the people around me - and I was about four people back from the stage, very up front - were just having a loud conversation with their friends as though we were at a coffee shop. Why are you here? Why did you get up close? If you don't care about this amazing moment, then what makes you want to get five feet away from the man to talk about your kid's scores in math class? Just go outside, you dork! Or leave your ticket for a real fan to enjoy! I got overly heated about this and the wife had to back me down a little bit. So annoying.
I was really looking forward to this show, and for the most part it provided everything I needed from it. If you don't know Turnstile, I'm not terribly surprised, as they are kind of in a niche right now as rock continues to contract away from the mainstream. But they are very hot among the rock/punk/hardcore folks, and this show was sold out in a heartbeat.
The key thing here is that their new album is amazing. Just a perfect blast of anger and catchy guitar riffs and joyous singing. It's like if Weezer or Fall Out Boy was a lot more angry and loud. And so I felt exceedingly out of place in the crowd - taller and older and significantly less pierced and tattooed than everyone else there. But the show freaking jammed. Just loud and fun and exuberant. And hot and humid and freaking packed with humans. The one plus about this being an all ages show though? There must have been a lot of 11pm curfews because the floor cleared out around 10:30 and gave me more room to not get bounced around.
There were so many pits at first, and then a big ass one opened in the middle of the main section in front of the sound stage. I was about four people outside of it, and was glad for that buffer because I still had to hold my ground for the first few songs. Much more violent than you see in that video up above of Lolla Brazil or something. And while I didn't get fully engulfed there, I was close enough so that my slight pogo-ing and fist pumping looked to be a part of the melee.
Pretty sure they played every song from Glow On, and each one was rad. "TLC," "Blackout," "Mystery," "Don't Play," or "Holiday," they all jammed. But then the weird moment of the night was when they came out for their encore, and just fired right back in to "Mystery," as though we had not just heard that same song 30 minutes before. It ruled, yet again, but it was really odd that they hadn't planned an encore song and held one back for that moment. Great show though. Was hoping they'd be coming to ACL.
[oh, and I forgot to mention, I saw two of the opening acts. I don't understand, in the slightest, what the word "hardcore" even means when it comes to musical genre. Ceremony was kinda awesome, but it also felt like I was watching a disco and new wave band fronted by Henry Rollins. The other one, Citizen, also vascilated between screaming, breakneck punk and new wave 80's sounds. Very confusing...but fun!]
This show was good. But I had a very bad attitude about it the entire time. I can explain.
Last October, when shows were being announced for the new Moody Center, a friend reached out to see if I'd like to see George Strait and Willie Nelson open the new center. Hell yeah, I would! Are you kidding? So I wrote him back and said I needed to check with the wife and then I'd get back to him. Did I get back to him? No, dear reader, I did not get back to him. Idiot. So, another friend hit me up to go see NR&tNS and I was like sure, that sounds like a fun night. Put in on the calendar. And then a few days before Willie/George, the first friend pinged me to talk logistics for our night out. DAMMIT. Felt like the right thing to do to honor my commitment to the people I had actually committed to, but I'm still so pissed that I didn't get to see King George and the Redheaded Stranger sing "Pancho and Lefty" together on the same stage.
BUT - that is not Nathaniel's fault. All my fault.
We had a really good time at this show. Ate some dinner at Scholtz's beforehand, with a few beers, which was a good plan because the beer at the Amp was insanely expensive. Lovely night, and good company, we had tickets back in the lawn. They have significantly improved the lawn experience since the Counting Crows show we saw there in the summer of 2021. The speakers have been adjusted or something, because the sound was clear and solid. So we just laid back on the lawn and had a lovely time listening to our buddy Nate belt his ass off.
And that's the thing, right? Dude can freaking crank it with his voice. He looks like he's all of 4'8" on that stage, but the voice that erupts from his little body is outsized by magnitudes. His whole band was there to have a good time, and he bopped his way through a great set. Wait, is that Sturgill Simpson in that video up above, playing guitar? Weird. Anyway, for sure, their best song continues to be "SOB," but the whole set was a lovely compliment to an evening in the grass with friends, a $36 cocktail for my wife, and a $45 bucket of four Dos Equis for me and my friends. Yes, for a round of drinks, that likely had value of about $10, I paid $85. Welcome to the new Austin.
Fun show, I'll probably catch him again in the fall at ACL!
My good Lord. What an amazing show. I mean it, this was one of those transcendent feeling moments of musical bliss that left me floating on a cloud. Just ridiculously good.
I had never gotten to see MMJ before. I got to see an offshoot band from their drummer a few years back - Spanish Gold - when they played ACL and then an aftershow at Stubb's indoor. After the show, I went and said hi to the drummer, and clapped him on the back. It was like clapping a bear made of water. Sweatiest human on the planet after that show.
I've been a fan of their music for years. I think Rolling Stone first turned me on to Z or It Still Moves many moons ago, and I love both of those albums. The stuff since then has been more uneven - Evil Urges has some great tunes and some odd detours, and the same can be said for the Waterfall albums, Circuital, and the new jammy one. But at the end of the day, they make a cool mash of rock and jam and alt country that I really enjoy.
And this show leaned into some of those best things! "Mahgeetah," "One Big Holiday," "Wordless Chorus," and "Victory Dance" were all revelatory, adding depth to already great songs. I lost count of the number of times goose bumps raised up on my arms during those songs. "Holdin on to Black Metal" was an unexpected surprise song, as was the Willie Nelson cover on his birthday.
Jim James just crushed it as well. Hell, the whole band walked a perfect tightrope of skilled precision and shambling looseness that I can't even understand. But James uses his voice to reach new spots in the eardrum, as he simultaneously is shredding on the guitar. Also, you have to discuss his hair. His hair floated in the wind like a sea anemone , pulsating to and fro in the glow of a spotlight. It was like an extra member of the band.
The sometimes got a little too jam band-ish for my wife, but I enjoyed the entirety of the show. Just wonderful (the way I feel). I'd go see them again immediately.
If I see more shows like this, Chvrches may become an actual favorite band. Really great, high energy show.
The funny thing that my wife observed during the show is how weird this band looks as a group. You've got the pretty, tiny Lauren Mayberry out front, belting out the lyrics, dancing around, changing her outfit every handful of songs. And then behind her there are these two heavy-set dudes in all black who look like they are roadies who got picked to come out and play with the girl. They barely interact, although the two dudes come out from behind their synths sometimes to wail on their guitar or bass. But otherwise they're back there in the shadows, while the spotlight stays focused on Mayberry. And there was a drummer for the live show, which was a good addition to give some more ooomph to the tracks.
They did a great job of including the best songs from the new album and a lot of the best tunes from the prior albums. The show flowed very well. And, at least from my perspective, their tunes sounded amazing. I bet I leaned over to my wife four times during the show to show her the goosebumps rolling up my forearms.
The best part was definitely the three song encore, when they played "Asking for a Friend" (a new favorite from the new album), "The Mother We Share," and "Clearest Blue." Hell yeah. Sent me out of the show floating on a cloud. My only quibble is that I wish I had been closer to the show for those last three songs so that it wouldn't have looked so weird to jump around and pump my fists in the air as I sang "YOU STILL MATTER!" to the world.
You can never go back, right? Someone said that, and I should have paid attention.
I saw the Black Crowes play a supremely awesome show back in high school, in support of the Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. It was in that old Quonset hut of the City Coliseum. Kind of a dump, but I saw a ton of very good shows there, from Smashing Pumpkins to Pearl Jam to Soundgarden to the Chilis. The thing that I remember most about that show was the opening song. In darkness, they started the rad, swampy, slow-build opening of "No Speak No Slave," and when the dual guitar attack kicks in after about 20 seconds, the lights on stage fired on like the surface of the sun, the speakers went to 11, and every nerve ending in my body climaxed at once. For real - how many concert moments do you remember after 30 years? That one literally just gave me goosebumps again while remembering it. So freaking awesome. I also recall that afterwards me and my friends claimed to have gotten contact high from all the people around us and decided we just HAD to stop at Taco Cabana to quell our munchies. High school kids are so dumb.
Wait, I just found a video that kind of shows like what I remember. It wasn't exactly like this, but close enough for you to get the feeling. Hell yeah.
goosebumps all over again.
Anyway, now that the brothers Robinson have made up and decided to tour again, I wanted to go see them do their thing again. And as an added bonus, the show would involve them performing Shake Your Money Maker from start to finish. And that album flipping rules. I wore that thing out once I discovered it - sister Sharon gave me a tape of it that she had ripped off of her CD - and I was pumped to see those songs live again.
The crowd was a little odd to me. Lot's of biker-looking dudes and kind of metal-esque folks. Like, everyone was just desperate for music to happen again, and they didn't care that they were about to see a stoner Southern rock band who sometimes turns their live shows into jam. Odd, but whatever.
The show was fun - but I have to say they were sloppy. And I've said it before and will say it again - I don't expect note to note perfection out of a live show, but at the same time I want it to be in the same neighborhood. A song was good and popular and beloved because of how it sounded on the record. If you change the tempo and the words and leave out the guitar solo, then you are just not playing the same song. Songs Inspired by Shake Your Money Maker. It wasn't terrible, but just a lot of missed notes and guitar solos that sounded nothing like the original. And if I didn't know every word, there is no way that I understood anything Chris sang. If someone was hearing those songs for the first time, they'd think "Twice as Hard" was called Wiiiiyiiiiyiii Suppart!
And, after they had finished the Shake Your Money Maker run, they actually went into "No Speak No Slave," and I was PUMPED that they'd recreate that moment I remember from the mid-90's. Instead, the tempo was too fast, they just skipped some of the cool sounds from the intro (like the little shaker!), and when the song kicked in no lights did anything. Sad trombone.
Enough with the whining - in the end, it was supremely fun to hear these songs again. Because of the track order of the album, they opened with two of their biggest songs ever, which was weird, but also very cool. I thought it was especially cool to hear some of the underappreciated tracks like "Thick n' Thin," "Struttin' Blues," and "Stare it Cold." Those songs still BURN IT DOWN.
Fun show, and glad to get back out there for live music again.
I think there is a lesson I should learn about going back to try to relive your past. It's just never going to be as good as you want it to be.
25+ years ago, I loved Counting Crows. Like, I had August and Everything After and Recovering the Satellites just burned into my brain. Each of those two albums reminds me of important milestones in life - my first real girlfriend, a trip to Boulder with my sister, a lacrosse tournament in San Francisco, hours spent driving around town in high school. Love those two discs. And their later music was fine - This Desert Life and Hard Candy had good tunes that I dug after college was over. And, I knew the wife liked them as well, so a win/win to snag tickets for this show.
As an aside, the new Moody Amphitheater downtown looks freaking awesome. The entrance was kind of a hassle right now because of construction across the street, but the setup and space is really freaking nice. We had lawn seats and just posted up on the grass to enjoy the show with good sight lines.
The issue here is that Adam Duritz just kind of went off on his own little deal and refused to really stick to the songs. Now, don't get mad at me, I don't expect a band to do exact replicas of their songs for a concert. I'm down with some ad libs and changing things up to make it fresh and interesting. But he straight up just changed the songs and the lyrics and the notes he was supposed to hit. Like, "Mr. Jones" is half sung in a falsetto because it's supposed to be so high? Well Adam just kept it down in a baritone and did his thing. Which leaves the crowd - mainly old people who dug these songs in 1994 - all over the place when trying to sing along. From talking to others, this is apparently a known thing, that Duritz doesn't seem to try to emulate his recorded songs. A quick google reflects this as well.
Which is too bad! The band sounded good, and it was fun to hear them play some of my favorite tunes, but not being able to sing along is lame, and it's also just hard to get into a tune that you know and love when the reasons for it being amazing in the first place are removed.
I'm glad I went, but was definitely bummed by the performance.
Yola came to ACL last year, but I wasn't able to make the schedule work to go over there and catch her set. But her Dan Auerbach-produced new album is some golden, soulful Americana beauty. So when I saw that she would be coming back, I snapped up a pair of tickets.
I love the Scoot Inn. If the parking wasn't so horrendous over there in East Austin, it would be perfect. It's much smaller than Stubb's, so the bar is easy to get to, the sightlines are great, and the sound doesn't have to be up to 11 the entire time. It was a perfect night outside for the show too. Just a really nice experience. There is a new parking garage a few blocks away (that was closed this night) but once that is up and running, we'll be cooking.
Yola herself was wonderfully endearing. Her voice is great - a little raw, but very real - and the little stories and anecdotes she told between songs, in a lovely British accent, were so fun. Her hair was a topic of conversation for at least five minutes - it's like another member of the band. Her band just looked like they were having a good time backing her up, and it made is even more fun to watch them do their thing.
One thing to understand about this show - it is chilled. Don't think there is going to be a bunch of dancing or jamming out. My wife and her friend were ready to get turnt up, but this was not the show for that action. Really nice night though - highly recommend.
Man. This was some false advertising bullshit. If you were to see advertising that said "PROCLAIM JUSTICE PRESENTS VOICES FOR JUSTICE W/ GARY CLARK JR. W/ THE DIXIE CHICKS" (from do512) or the Chronicle's "Voices for Justice w/ Gary Clark Jr., Dixie Chicks," what would you think you were going to get to see? Would you expect relatively equal performance time on the stage? Maybe a whole collaborative show? Would you expect more than one song from each of the artists listed on that bill? Or would you definitely expect that one of those two artists was going to take the stage for one single, solitary song, and then sing backup on two more, before bouncing? A week later, I'm still very annoyed about this. I bought great seats - four rows up, almost exactly center stage - and the wife and I spent the evening getting ready and jamming classic Dixie Chicks songs while we excitedly discussed which songs they might play. Neither of us guessed that they would just play "Not Ready to Make Nice" and then peace out. The tickets were like $250 a piece too. And here's the other sucky part - Gary Clark Jr. is freaking amazing. I loved watching him do his thing, even though he never played "This Land," as he stalked the stage and wrecked the set with some hot licks and sweet rock and roll. He sounded great. His cover of "Come Together" was molten lava tastiness. "Pearl Cadillac" was smooth as hell. But advertising the show as both him AND the Dixie Chicks made it seem like he was just the opener that we needed to get through to get to the reason we came to the show! So, needless to say, this show was disappointing overall. Also, that is probably my least favorite of the DC songs that got popular. Dammit. And this is on top of the pain-in-the-assery that we experienced getting the tickets. I got an e-mail telling me when they would go on sale, and so I was waiting by my computer right at that exact moment to snag a pair of tickets. And as usual, it felt difficult, with Ticketmaster repeatedly telling me that there were difficulties or that the seats I had clicked were already sold. Anyway, I finally got a pair and celebrated. Then, a few days later, I got an e-mail saying that the sale had been cancelled because the tickets weren't supposed to be on sale until a week later. MFers! They refunded the money but I was so pissed. Then, the day before the normal sale, they sent another e-mail giving us a new, special code to use to get in to buy an hour before the normal time. So, cool, right? Except the freaking code was misspelled. Idiots! And, of course, at 9am of whenever the sale started, no one will answer a call at either ACL Live or Ticketmaster. I was, yet again, highly pissed. Now I wish it would have stayed broken and I would have saved that $500.
I'm a sucker for the Black Keys. I, maybe foolishly, invited the wife to come along to this one, thinking that they are a relatively benign radio rock band that wouldn't be too offensive to her musical tastes, but I think in the end I pushed it a touch too hard. These guys get pretty raucous when they jam.
"you're the Black Keys, goddammit." I just laughed out loud when they fist bumped. I'm a big dork. Modest Mouse was the opening band we saw - we made it to the show too late to catch any of the set from Shannon and the Clams, mainly because the parking situation around the Erwin Center is freaking horrific. I was excited to see MM - if I've ever seen them before I don't recall it (but part of me feels like I've caught them at ACL before) - and I have a friend who loves them. The music sounded great - I really enjoyed the semi-weirdness of their groove and the three guys all blasting percussion effects into the tunes - but the vocals sounded godawful. Just fully washed out and unintelligible. The guy literally could have been mumbling the word "pineapple" every time he opened his mouth, for all I could tell. Which is too bad, because I'd like to like those guys. Also, at one point I decided to run out for another beverage, and when I came back to my row, the single guy at the end of our row didn't move for me when I walked up with both hands full of drinks. He was straight up asleep. Had to bump his knee with my hand and he sheepishly jumped up. You know the show is scintillating when someone can rack out during it! Anyway, I was bummed about this part of the show. The Keys played a hell of a good set. They included a handful of tracks from the excellent new album, they included tracks from the old albums like Magic Potion and Thickfreakness, and then they played the hits in between. My favorite part of the night was also my favorite song - "Little Black Submarines" from El Camino - where Auerbach started the track out with an acoustic guitar and then shifted on the fly to bash out the rest of the tune with his electric. So freaking good. I also loved that they played the real version of the song, and not the annoying radio version that cuts out a portion of the acoustic build up at the start, because: (1) I got to lord my knowledge of the song over those around me who expected an earlier shift to electric; and (2) its a better song like that. I also really liked "Lo/Hi" and "Go," played back-to-back during the encore. For the encore, they brought out a huge ass electric chair thing to sit at the back of the stage. Seems odd to just bring that out for the last three songs, but whatever. As I was getting psyched up for the show over the past week, I got to thinking, yet again, about who the best rock and roll bands are in America right now. Personally, I'd have the Keys near the top of the list, but when I just tried running a search, I see that Billboard would give the crown to Imagine Dragons in 2018, with something called Five Finger Death Punch at #5, so I apparently know nothing at all about rock and roll anymore. I guess that comes from, in large part, the diversification and splintering of the genre, so that now you have 87 different types of music that would all think of themselves as "rock," but I don't want to hear. If these guys are in the same zone as black metal and glam and psych rock and emo, then it's hard to locate things like "best." Whatever, these guys are a great rock and roll band. Shut up, Richard. Black Keys do a great job of staying relatively close to the originals of the tunes, but slightly different so that you aren't just sitting there listening to the album at home. Also, my wife was semi-amazed at how much Patrick Carney hits his drums, which I found hysterical. Lots of empty seats in the arena, which I thought was interesting. I snapped up my tickets the second they went on sale, expecting this one would sell out, but I guess I overestimate the draw of classic rock action in today's rap-centered world. And once I realized there were lots of empty spots, I realized that the show could have been at a smaller, better venue, which would have been sweet! Oh well. Good show.
Somewhat hilariously, I bought my tickets to go see this show like 30 seconds after they went on sale, back in June. I set a calendar reminder, and was driving at the time near Boulder, Colorado, so I had my wife deal with scoring two tickets even though I was very clear with her that this show was not one she would enjoy. But I scored tickets! I'm in! And then everyone I talked to before the show kicked off had bought their tickets like a week ago because it didn't come close to selling out. Whatever! As I've mentioned before, Meantime is one of my favorite albums of all time, so I was intensely into going to this show.
So, these guys really haven't made popular music in forever (only recently did I realize that they have made four albums since 2004), but they declared that this was their thirtieth anniversary, so they were going to do 30 shows of 30 songs for their 30th. Although, something that wasn't apparent until the band took the stage, its really just Page Hamilton and then some younger dudes who have learned the old tunes. Which, I'm not sure it really mattered, but part of me is bummed that it wasn't the original lineup.
No opener. Doors opened at 8 and without an opener, I was worried that meant we needed to be there at 8. Which meant we were in very prime position (to get kicked a bunch, but more on that later) and then had to cool our jets for an hour and a half before they took the stage. But then it was all worth it. They are extremely hard, and I know that isn't for everyone, but the level of complexity and unconventional time signatures they use, with a ton of repetition, while staying so hard, is one of the coolest parts.
My only complaint with the tunes is that I thought the vocals could have been louder in the speakers - Page got washed out by the crushing riffage for much of the show. And also I could have used more tunes from Meantime - I think they played 3 or 4 - and I'm very jealous that the show before us got all of Strap it On, in order. But even with a few more Betty songs than I would have wanted, it still ruled. They covered Bjork's "Army of Me," for crying out loud. How more On Brand for me could they get? So, overall, the show was freaking awesome.
An aside that came to me both during and after the show though. When I was a kid, and going to shows like Helmet or GWAR or whatever at Liberty Lunch, you would see some goober either vaguely or more explicitly dressing up like a Nazi - high black boots, maybe one of those hats, jacket or vest with patches on it, whatever. For bands that had nothing to do with neo-Nazi views at all. Like, freaking Mudhoney or something. But in those days, maybe out of pure naivety from me, it felt like dumb dress up stuff, like some kid who thought it would be a laugh to draw a swastika on his hand before the show. But in the new political landscape of today, that shit freaks me out. There was a dude in the Mohawk crowd with a close-cropped, blonde, flattop haircut, wearing a silver shirt that had the big eagle thing that is on all of the boxes at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark (or at least it looked that way to me), who walked right over to the one African-American dude in the crowd and raised his hand up in the middle of the guy's back. He didn't do anything - never touched him that I could see - but he also might have noticed me pausing in my old-man-lite-thrashing to eyeball his sketchy-looking ass. After a few seconds of looking like he was about to shove the guy into the moon, he squeezed away to somewhere else. Later, I saw a different kind of skeevy guy drop a folding knife on the floor and then quickly pick it up to shove it back into his big leather jacket. A young kid and I both saw it, exchanged eyebrows-up looks, and edged back from the guy a little bit. Now, neither of those dudes did a damn thing, but my radar definitely picked them up in a way I don't think I would have in 1992. Made the watching experience a little more wary. Which sucks.
Also of note, that one African-American dude in the crowd. Had the best energy in the whole place - just exuberantly singing along and jumping and trying to crowd-surf the pit. I loved having him up there in the pit. Although, at one point her did a sweet scissor-kick freakout jump while directly in front of me, and caught me squarely on the thigh, with a light squash to the left nad, and I could have used a touch less exuberance in that particular moment.
This is the longest live music review I have written in a while. One more story - I actually caught a pick from Page. Freaking awesome - I never get to snag things like that at a show, and I didn't even try for it. He flung it from the front of the stage, and it careened through the air to neatly wedge in the crook of my folded arms. The people around me fired up their phone flashlights and were scouring the floor, and I got to proudly hold up my prize. Sweet!
