The Walkmen, The Metro, Chicago, IL - 01/14/2012

My buddy Aaron and I ended up heading up to Chicago for a 36-hour trip centered around the mighty Walkmen doing a 10th anniversary show in honor of their debut album. I was going with my wife, but she could not extricate herself from work, sadly.

After arriving late Friday night, we started with deep dish at Lou Maltani's, which I'd heard was amazing. It was. Super heavy with a buttery crust of neverending goodness. We ordered a medium and could not finish it. You'd think we'd be ready to rock it out at that point, but no, the pizza defeated us straight into our respective beds.

Saturday started with "brunch" at Hot Doug's, the venerable hot dog institution about which I've written before. We only had to wait 40 minutes or so, with only 20 of those in the 15 degree weather. When we saw a table order one of everything on the menu, we knew it was going to be alright.

I had the Palomar (pinto beans, bacon, etc.), the Foie Gras (duck dog with foie gras) and a Chicago style. We split the fries cooked in rendered duck fat. We felt happy.

We followed this up with a trip to Revolution Brewing (quite awesome), a stroll through Reckless Records (I passed on an original pressing of OCEAN RAIN and am now kind of kicking myself), and finally beers at the Map Room (recommended). After a quick respite back at the hotel, we grabbed burgers and beers at the Grafton Pub (quite on the money) and then made the trudge down to the Metro.

I'd seen one show here before (Black Keys in 2008) and was so so on the venue. I'll say that I'm glad we got there fairly early (and talked to Paul, the guitarist, on our way in), as it got pretty dang crowded fast. About 20 after 9, they took the stage (no opener) and proceed to play a very long, very career-spanning set that never let up. In fact, I was simply exhausted at the 3-hour point. We started to make our way out right after "Thinking of a Dream I Had" and caught the last number from the coat check line. There was no encore, and they didn't need one.

There's a nice bootleg floating around of this show. The version of "In the New Year" was insane. This one will be tough to beat for 2012, similar to their jaw-dropping 2011 show.

Line by Line, We Scrape By (New Song)
They're Winning
Wake Up
Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me is Gone
Revenge Wears No Wristwatch
Hang On, Siobhan
The Blizzard of '96
We've Been Had
Love U Love (new song)
Dreamboat (new song)
Love is Love (new song)
Donde Esta La Playa
On the Water
In the New Year
Red Moon (Ham - solo acoustic guitar w/ horns)
Stranded (w/horns)
Canadian Girl (w/horns)
Louisiana (w/horns)

SET BREAK

Bottled Sand (new song)
Blue as Your Blood
All Hands and the Cook
Woe is Me
French Vacation
The Rat
No Christmas While I'm Talking
I Lost You (by request)
138th Street (by request)
Postcards From Tiny Islands (by request)
Thinking of a Dream I Had (by request)
Heartbreaker (new song)

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN - 12/01/2011

We had a blast at this show, the tour ender for Gillian and David. I think the biggest issue was that we saw a crazy, insanely good show from them (for 2011, second only to the Walkmen) back in August, and while they were quite great tonight (with some truly outstanding moments), the vibe at the Ryman kind of sucked the life out of this one for me a bit.

Trust me - it wasn't a bad show by any stretch, but it just didn't have that magical quality that we saw them bring to the Orange Peel a few months earlier. I did not take photos or a setlist, sadly, but the set was fairly similar to the Orange Peel show without any huge surprises, though they did end the whole thing with a rousing cover of "Jackson."