Tag live music
Karen and I made a trip to Chicago last weekend to see Lambchop touring in support of FLOTUS, and of course it was a wonderful time—about as weirdly-laid-back as the other time I’ve seen Lambchop play, and about one hundred times more laid-back than any other show by any other band I’ve ever seen. Delightfully quiet—quiet to a point where you begin appreciating the band’s musicianship in an uncommon way. They played (nearly?) everything on FLOTUS, plus a few Is a Woman-era selections, and finished with that great cover of “When You Were Mine”. Sui generis.
Monday night (3 feb 2014), I saw the Hold Steady play a show at A&R Music Bar. It was a very wild, loud, energetic show—just exactly what I expected. Craig Finn went guitar-less most of the evening (“I made a new year’s resolution to stop fake-playing-guitar so much”) and repeatedly attempted to imitate Paul Stanley’s stage banter. There were many good songs. I was particularly happy to hear Rock Problems and Stuck Between Stations. Besides the great music, I had a chance to meet up with Blair, the dude who ridiculed me online a few years ago and since then has become a good internet friend, as well as a bunch of other random Columbus music-scene folks. Tons of fun.
I saw Dan Bejar play a solo Destroyer show at the Wexner Center last thursday night (21 nov 2013). It was austere: one guitar, hardly any banter. Presumably because of this, he only played two songs from Kaputt. Most of the set was old songs I wasn’t familiar with. But it was a trip to see Bejar in real life—he is such a weird, intriguing dude. It was a nice musical diversion from life’s present insanity.
I had the pleasure of seeing Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas play a show this afternoon (10 nov 2013) at Via Vecchia Winery in the brewery district, put on by City Music. I saw these two february 2012 in the same venue and they were great then; the show today was—dare I say—even better. I was once again struck by the freshness and vibrancy of this music. They played a bunch of new tunes from their forthcoming album and it was so exciting to hear new, great things in the Scottish folk idiom presented so fantastically. I wouldn’t complain if these two came to Columbus once a month.
Last night (1 nov 2013) at the A&R Music Bar, I saw John Vanderslice play a great show. Right now he’s just touring with Jason Slota, who plays drums and Moog, often simultaneously. The show consisted of a few songs from Dagger Beach and Pixel Revolt, lots of songs from Emerald City, a few Bowie covers, and lots of other good stuff mixed in. The best parts: “Kookaburra”, where JV switched from acoustic to electric guitar halfway through in order to play a rockin’ solo; also “Underneath the Leaves”, a personal favorite, complete with pedal-fired synth sample!