The Walkmen, Mercy Lounge, Nashville, TN - 9/27/2009

The main attraction for the Nashville trip was seeing the Walkmen rock it out at the Mercy Lounge. I've seen them put on some great shows over the past 18 months or so, capped off by a fantastic set at Pitchfork this summer (see below). We spent the day well, including a wonderful (as usual) brunch at Margot, a productive trip to Grimey's and a fantastic cookout over at Dana's place (for which I am still indebted).

We checked out Here We Go Magic as the opening band, and it was a bit meh for me. Without much ado, the mighty Walkmen then took the stage and played a (for them) fairly mellow set with a good dose of new songs. It was a good show ... not the same level of blow-the-roof-off good that I've seen them bring lately, but it was reliably good ...

SETLIST:

- new song -
IN THE NEW YEAR
LITTLE HOUSE OF SAVAGES
- new song -
- new song -
LOUISIANA
RED MOON
ALL HANDS ON THE COOK
CANADIAN GIRL
POSTCARDS FROM TINY ISLANDS
- new song -
ON THE WATER
THINKIN' OF A DREAM I HAD
- new song - (same one they closed PFork with)
---encore---
THE RAT
DONDE ESTA LA PLAYA
ANOTHER ONE GOES BY

Photo courtesy of Jenn Lambert.

Guilty Pleasures, Mercy Lounge, Nashville, TN - 9/26/2009

I got into Nashville Saturday morning for a very quick (<48 hours) trip centered around seeing the Walkmen the following night. The day consisted of some usual Nashville highlights ... beers and football, a trip to Yazoo, and another go round with the burrito asada at Rosepepper. All of it ... very good.

As a last minute thing, our group decided to head over to Mercy Lounge to see the Nashville-famous Guilty Pleasures do their 80's thing. Their unique take on the 80's-cover-band schtick includes featuring a lot of female vocals and basically nothing but crack musicians. And, as usual, I got drunk. Nice. Some songs included:

Don't You Forget About Me
Burning For You
Easy Lover
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
What's Love Got To Do With It
Heaven Is A Place On Earth
Straight Up
Brass In Pocket
Every Little Step
Burning Down the House
It's the End of the World as We Know It ...

All Tomorrow's Parties New York Festival, Monticello, NY - 9/11-13/2009

I bought tickets and booked my room for this festival with no idea of who would be playing back in Oct 2008, all based on how great a time I'd had that year as well as a weird, unwavering faith that Pavement would be the curators and make their big comeback at this event. (I was a year early.) I was slightly disappointed when I learned that the Flaming Lips were the curators instead, but I had faith that the ATP folks would bring the noise yet again. Add to that how amazing the venue is with great sounding indoor stages and on-site hotel rooms ... well, good stuff.

Biggest beef/disappointment with this year: the powers that be decided to outlaw outside alcohol. Last year, I freely roamed around with Magic Hat's and Dogfish Head's that I had brought along, and no one blinked. This year, we had to sneak our good beer in and, at times, pay $5 for a Bud/Bud Light. (Oh, they had Amstel and Heineken, too ... whoopee.) I hope they reconsider this for next year ...

Day One - Friday

We drove in from Columbus, stopping in rural Pennsylvania on the way and arriving around 1 PM Friday afternoon. My buddy Matt and his wife Nicole met us there a couple hours later, driving in from Boston. We got checked in in rapid order, got our beer in by hook or crook, and got ready to rock.

We saw about 2 seconds of the Drones (at which I stood next to Sam Beam of Iron & Wine for a while) and then had to take care of the beer/room situation a bit more. Then we settled in for the Feelies playing Crazy Rhythms in its entirety, an album that is rightly canonize today and was introduced to me by my cousin Bill. They played the whole album and at times sounded great (later in the show) and at times got a little loose (the beginning of the show). It was great, though, and the "Raised Eyebrows" -> "Crazy Rhythms" closer always kills me.

One thing to realize about ATP is that there is no VIP/artists only areas, really. So within a few hours, we ran into and had a kind of normal conversation with Wayne Coyne. He talked about how they had just flown in after opening for Coldplay across Europe and how surreal that was. I've yet to see him wearing anything besides what he's wearing in this photo of Noelle and him ...

We caught most of the next act, the Dirty Three, playing Horse Stories in its entirety. Nick Cave was sitting in with them on piano, too, which was, well, bad ass. I saw the Dirty Three open for Pavement back in 1995 and talked to the violinist in the band, Warren Ellis, who said that that was a fun tour indeed. He was nice and seemed genuinely pleased to talk to someone who knew his music somewhat. And, oh, I met Nick Cave, which was super badass awesome ... what can I say? He's a hero ...





We checked out about 1/2 song of Suicide, which was just super loud and whacked. Then we saw about 1/2 of Panda Bear's set, which was also loud and very similar to seeing Animal Collective.

Then it was on to a great solo set from Iron & Wine, by which point we were all getting a bit drunk, I think. But he sounded great, opening with "Such Great Heights" (to which he encouraged everyone to sing along) and moving on to "Naked as We Came" and "The Trapeze Swinger," among others). I reluctantly left early to catch a bit of David Cross' comedy set (which I found hilarious), and then it was time for one of the big attractions: the Jesus Lizard.

They rocked hard, they sounded unreal tight and not aged a bit. I thought it was badass, I think the rest of my group found it a bit hard for their tastes. A great end to the night. I was getting foggy by the end of their set ...

Day Two - Saturday

We started Saturday with some yummy pizza in town at Brother Bruno and then move on to a gentle, lovely set by Sufjan Stevens, of whom I'm not a huge fan. He played his album Seven Swans in its entirety, and it sounded great. Nice beginning ...

The rest of the daytime included slipping in and out of sets by Bridezilla (interesting but not quite there), Black Dice (tolerated about 15 seconds of this), Anti-Pop Consortium (good hip hop set), Atlas Sound (baaaaaad, as in not good), Sleepy Sun (I left early but really liked what I heard), and Autolux (so so ... kind of by the numbers indie rock).

Then came Shellac, who played their standard set with super tightness. Deerhunter followed with a very good set including "Nothing Ever Happened." They sounded very tight live, which surprised me. Noelle and I checked out about 10 minutes of the Melvins, which was hilariously heavy. Two drummers playing in exact synchrony.

The big finale was Animal Collective, who just don't translate for me live very much. They wove in some "hits" to the set including "Also Frightened" and "Summer Clothes," but it just never gelled for me. And I was tired ... at 1 AM, I really do turn into a pumpkin ... most folks agree ...

Day Three - Sunday

I was hitting festival fatigue (4th one in 3 months) by Sunday. But I soldiered on. We actually went to see a Criterion Collection movie to start the day, Ace in the Hole with Kirk Douglas hamming it up big time. We finally geared up for Caribou, which was pretty cool with a ton of musicians doing a Sun Ra-plays-Beach-Boys type thing. Next was Menomena, a band I really like. They also played some of their better known songs like "The Pelican," "Wet and Rusting," and "Muscle and Flo," but they never seemed to gel, either. Matt and I made it through almost all of Boris playing Feedbacker, which was the loudest experience I've ever had bar none, My Bloody Valentine included.

We closed out Sunday with the Flaming Lips, who played their usual set with their usual antics. Another reviewer of this fest already pointed out that they're good at what they do, but who needs to see them play live more than once? I agree ... If they just made everything sound as great as they sound when they (invariably) open with "Race for the Prize" ... I could get behind that.

We turned in before they finished, but despite many lukewarm reviews above, let me stress that this festival is all about exposure to music/art/film wit which you may not be exposed otherwise as well as a general indie-rock-summer-camp feel. It's different than other festivals and is almost not really a festival so much as ... well, something else ...

Lollapalooza, Chicago, IL - 8/7-9/2009

So Lollapalooza started this year on Friday, August 7th. On Wednesday, August 5th, my girlfriend and I had no thoughts of going but found ourselves having a drink at the venerable St. James (what else is new?) and discussing how awesome it would be to go, seeing as how the line-up rocked and we love Chicago to the core. Next thing you know, we had booked some flights ($200 a piece), a hotel room out near O'Hare (not ideal, but again only $200 a piece) and Lolla tix (for the sake of symmetry, $200 a piece again). And we were off ...

Day One - Friday

We get in, check in to our hotel Friday morning, and make our way for round 2 of Hot Doug's. (We're becoming a bit obsessed.) This time, it was again a mega-long wait with mega-good food, but we both felt a bit queasy after gorging our faces on fries cooked in rendered duck fat.

We were nervous about getting to the stadium in time for our first cannot miss set (Bon Iver at 3:00 PM), but we made it. Some light rain was falling, thinning out the crowds a good deal. We got a great spot and settled in for a fantastic start the weekend, including another chilling version of "Re: Stacks". The full set:

1. Lump Sum
2. Blood Bank
3. Skinny Love
4. Brackett, WI
5. Flume
6. Wolves (pts 1 and 2)
7. Re: Stacks
8. For Emma
9. Creature Fear -> Team

We basically held a spot between the north side main stage and north side side stage for the next few acts. Ben Folds play a nice, goofy set at 4:00 PM, but he doesn't do a whole helluva lot for me. He did do "Bitches Ain't Shit," which is always fun, as well as "Rockin' the Suburbs," which is also fun.

Next up were Fleet Foxes who, as usual, were just jaw-dropping. One of the finest, most skilled bands playing today. Just awesome. Rain had let up some at this point, too ... nice ... and "Blue Ridge Mountains" is always just the bomb ...

1. Sun Giant
2. Sun It Rises
3. Drops In the River
4. English House
5. White Winter Hymnal
6. Ragged Wood
7. Your Protector
8. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song
9. He Doesn't Know Why
10. Mykonos
11. Blue Ridge Mountains

Next were the Decemberists on the big stage, and anyone who knows me knows that I am just not a fan of their over-the-top-ness, from Colin Meloy's vocals to the whole shebang in general. I was not impressed. Plus the annoying chick from My Brightest Diamond sang with them. Ugh. They played "The Hazards of Love" in its entirety. I just don't get it. It's like my parents with rap music.

Andrew Bird then brought a nice but kind of unaffecting set. I've seen him play on a big stage with much aplomb in the past (ACL 2007 comes to mind), and while he was fine, it was just a bit weak all things considered, even with the very strong last 4 songs ...

1. Fiery Crash
2. Masterswarm
3. Opposite Day
4. Fitz and the Dizzyspells
5. Oh No
6. Effigy
7. Not a Robot, But a Ghost
8. Anonanimal
9. Imitosis
10. Scythian Empires
11. Tables and Chairs
12. Fake Palindromes

Kings of Leon were one of the closing bands. I saw them way back when at the Exit/In in Nashville when they were still a ragged, Southern boogie band. And they were good. Now, they are a stadium-ready band with every life of blood and spit drained out of classics like "Molly's Chamber," which was their fourth song and the last one we could tolerate. We walked over and caught a few songs of Depeche Mode's set instead, and they killed. But we had a long (45 minute) ride on the blue line back out close to O'Hare, so we didn't make it to "Personal Jesus," sadly.

Day Two - Saturday

We started Saturday with another "tradition" for us in Chicago, brunch at the Southport Grocery. Their grilled coffeecake haunts my dreams, I tell you.

We started a much hotter and sunnier Saturday with the Constantines (so overlooked and maligned) on a small side stage. Their release Shine a Light got killer coverage on its release and is a standout from this decade. They brought their postpunk-meets-Springsteen growl fiercely including the classics "Nightime Anytime It's Alright" and "Young Lions."

We stayed at the same stage for a fun if slightly ragged/uneven set from Ida Maria. The end of the set was the highlight and had the "hits" ... "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked" and "Oh My God." Plus she ended with a cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog," which can hardly go wrong ...

We migrated to the big stages on the north side again (our usual hangout for the festival, really) to catch the end of Los Campesinos! doing a Pavement cover ("Box Elder") and then for a really strong set from Robert Earl Keen. I've always liked him fine, but he just sounded perfect under the sun and with a beer in my hand. Great set including "Gringo Honeymoon," "Feelin' Good Again," "Amarillo Highway" and "The Road Goes on Forever."

Next was a usually dependable, fun festival band, Arctic Monkeys. And they were awful - no energy, terrible song selection, etc. No "When the Sun Goes Down" or "Fake Tales of San Francisco" ... not even "A Certain Romance." They did cover Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand," but it was just odd rather than good.

On the other hand, Santigold was terrific on the sidestage, playing all the hits, of course, but working in a lot of odd tunes, as well, including a great cover of the Cure's "Killing an Arab." Her good songs ("Lights Out" especially) are just fantastic.

We were pumped for TV on the Radio on the main stage, and they were also terrible. Just shambles. We left after 20 minutes or so and made it over to see some of Animal Collective's set on the south side. It was also shambles, just a big mess out of which "Fireworks" finally emerged at some point (by which I didn't care anyway). I don't think that they are a great live experience, personally, but I think that's just my own proclivities toward real instruments, etc.

Tool was about to get started on the big stage on the south, so we scurries away out of fear and saw a few tunes from the Yeah Yeah Yeah's. Again, it just wasn't completely clicking. They sounded fine but a bit small for such a big stage at night like that. It was our bedtime, so we again beat the crowd out ...

Day Three - Sunday

Another nice day and not as brutally hot as Saturday, as I recall. We started with a nice shaded bluegrass treat from the Greencards, whom I had seen at Douglas Corner Cafe in Nashville many moons ago. They've gone much more newgrass as opposed to bluegrass, but it was nice and a relaxing start to the end of this fest. We kind of didn't want to leave the shade at this point, but the music called ...

We hung south side this time, first seeing the Airborne Toxic Event on the big stage (meh) and then kind of catching Dan Deacon on the side stage (too much ... definitely not my speed). Then we settled in for a very nice, fun set from Vampire Weekend. I saw them in February 2008 in Columbus, and they have gotten sooooo much better live since then. Again, a very fun set with a very large crowd ...

1. White Sky
2. Mansard Roof
3. Stand Corrected
4. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
5. Campus
6. Bryn
7. Boston
8. Run
9. A-Punk
10. M79
11. One (Blake's Got a New Face)
12. Cousins
13. The Kids Don't Stand a Chance
14. Oxford Comma
15. Walcott

We then made the very long trek to the north stages (literally almost a mile, I'd bet ... Grant Park is not small) to catch the last half of Dan Auerbach's set. It was way more straight blues rock a la Black Crowes than I expected. I think the drummer from My Morning Jacket is rocking it with him, too. Fine ... not great.

Then came Lou Reed, a personal hero. And he was beyond awful. Just a joke. Started 15 petulant minutes late, seemed totally unconnected to what was going on around him, had what seemed like 17 dudes playing bad bar band style music behind him. And he ran 20 minutes over, forcing Band of Horses on the side stage to possibly cut their set short.

1. Sweet Jane
2. Senselessly Cruel
3. Dirty Blvd
4. Waves of Fear
5. Mad
6. Paranoia Key of E
7. Waiting for the Man
8. Walk on the Wild Side

So Band of Horses are forced to come out 20 minutes late, and I'm not happy. They were a big reason for me coming, and they come out opening with "The First Song" (appropriately enough) and sounding huge and great. But by the time 8:30 (the supposed end of their set) came, they just pushed through until almost 9:00, despite the fact that Jane's Addiction started on the big stage. Ben Bridwell commented that they'd probably never play Lolla again, but he seemed rapturous, coming out in the crowd and just basking in the whole experience. It was the set of the weekend for me and quite magical ... just watching this clip of "The First Song" below (which is of great quality) gives me the chills now ...

1. The First Song
2. The Great Salt Lake
3. Is There a Ghost
4. Weed Party
5. Islands on the Coast
6. Cigarettes, Wedding Bands
7. Untitled
8. Marry Song
9. Window Blues (Western version)
10. No Ones Gonna Love You
11. The Funeral
12. Wicked Gil
13. Ode to LRC
14. The General Specific

We stuck around at the end for some of Jane's Addiction's set ... it was also a bit of a joke. All glam and over the top, no substance or whatever made them great back in the 90's. Stephen Perkins is a jaw-dropping drummer, though. But we were quickly bored and made out way out ...

The shows were hit or miss, but what a great excuse to hang in Chicago and drink some beers in the sun ...