5 Sentence Review

I was excited to review AA Bondy and Elvis Perkins in Dearland playing at Lincoln Hall for Muzzle of Bees, a great music blog by this dude Ryan who lives in Madison, WI.

Jen and I got good and fat at La Sardine, our favorite French restaurant in the city, and headed over to see AA Bondy start the show at about 10:30 p.m.

AA Bondy exceeded expectations with gross, feral emotion and ridiculously technical and beautiful guitar work in front of a slient, rapt audience.

Elvis Perkins in Dearland impressed with a tight and creative band and upbeat Louisiana-style pomp, but left the crowd a bit put off once or twice throughout the set.

Little known fact (especially if your google is broken): Elvis Perkins is the son of actor Anthony Perkins (yes! Norman Bates) and was named after the man himself, as Daddy Perkins loved his music.

         

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GIRLS took the stage at the Empty Bottle last Friday night at about midnight and played a slow, sprawling, loud, emotional and generally misunderstood set that really moved me and changed me and left me wondering why I have been ignoring my guitar and lyrics sheets.

Openers Smith Westerns from Chicago were largely panned by the crowd, which thinned notably before their set concluded, but I quite liked their style of treble heavy, reverb-soaked, tinny, androgynous rock.

GIRLS lead singer Christopher Owens occasionally sounds like Elvis Costello and Jarvis Cocker and always looks like Keanu Reeves circa Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, but it is clear that he has a raw, emotional outpouring of his inner feelings as he slowly and deliberately begins standout tracks such as Hellhole Ratrace, Lauren Marie and the showstopping explosion that was Summertime.

I think that many of the crowd showed up to hear the college radio and blog hit, Lust for Life, which the band chose to close the show with, but other tracks such Summertime and Hellhole Ratrace really played better on this small stage; all cleverly played on Owens' twangy and trebley Rickenbacker guitar, which he rarely removed and did not tune throughout the set.

I suppose it is worth noting that this show was on Friday the 13th, or that Owens grew up in some type of cult, or that the band's lead guitar player recently departed the band and a new guy stood in pretty effectively, but I think that would cheapen the unique and memorable impact this band and this singer and this night had upon me.

Photos:
The door outside the Empty Bottle
Smith Westerns
GIRLS lead singer Christopher Owens in pink
A photogenic dumptruck outside the show
I don't actually enjoy PBR, so.

Despite my reluctance to enjoy this group, they played their record well, played tightly and did not annoy me with obnoxious and unnecessary stage banter.

These kids are very, very young, and frankly, acted very young on stage, but somehow got the money and production team to put together a decent record, with a few standout hits, including Swim, which you can listen to on their myspace page.

Largely, this record is a collection of simple riffs, youthful lyrics and inexperienced (read: shitty) songwriting, but in today's blog-happy music scene, one decent track can get a pretty decent turnout for a young band playing on a Tuesday night.

The new Lincoln Hall, brought to you by the people who run Schuba's, seems like a decent show venue, though it felt more like a modern Metro (read: shitty) than a bigger Schuba's.

The best part of the show, for my money (I didn't actually pay to get in), was the dude (actual dude pictured, please click through) dancing, jumping, hopping, drumming and looking kinda crazy off to the side of the stage.  While it was clear he was a member of the band, he wasn't particularly musical, but was certainly the life of the party.  As the last song concluded, this wacko took his large floor drum into the embarassingly old and v-neck sweatered crowd and allowed fans to hit the drum along with him, though many of them were content to document the moment with thier ipho cameras. Ridiculous.

Wilco played a great set, two strong hours, interspersing some unbelieveable songs and some terrible songs, pretty much one after another.

Wilco has a giant song catalog, and played at least 10 of my favorite songs.

While I have seen wilco at least a dozen times, this was at least in my top ten.

Brilliant versions of:
Via Chicago
Blue black nova
Shot arm
Aquarium
I'll fight
Sonny feeling
Notgingsever
Can't stand it
Late greats
Poor places.

Jeff tweedy is still a twat.

Marry me, Annie Clark

No, seriously

I heard bad things about the last St Vincent tour, but I must say, full woodwind band totally works.

Covers "Dig A Pony" live!!!!

Way better live performer/singer than I anticipated and I highly recommend seeing her.

I sadly missed most of beach house's performance, as I tried to scalp two tickets my brother in law stuck me with, though I really only wanted to hear Gila, which sadly, I did not.

I have been wanting to see Grizzly Bear live for about a year now, and suffice to say, it was a great show, but jeez, they play some long, oddly parsed, occasionally discordant songs.

Grizzly bear playing softly

Grizzly bear playing loudly

Weed smoking is apparently frowned up now at concert venues in Chicago. Hmm, that was a surprise.

Turns out, the harmonizing and beautiful melodies you hear on Grizzly Bear records are really born out of unbelievable chemistry between several very talented and creative band members, with Ed Droste's voice standing out as the star, in all its reverb and delay riddled beauty.

This is insane, but my cousin, MIchael, looks very similar to TWO members of Grizzly Bear; suffice to say you have to have known Michael for a long time, but seriously, Google that shit.

By Nicholas Quirke