tumblr : 45rpm
Even I am not immune to the year-end listing process. Here’s my list of favorite/best shows of 2011. It’s so skewed as to representative of nothing except my particular universe – but it’s not like I’m pretending that 2012 isn’t going to be a laundry list of Springsteen and Afghan Whigs shows.
1. Twilight Singers, San Francisco
2. Wild Flag, Bell House
3. U2, Montreal night 1
4. Big Audio Dynamite, Roseland
5. Horrible Crowes, Bowery Ballroom
Tonight, Gorman Bechard’s Color Me Obsessed finally made it to New York City, and #1 Mats Fan Jesse Malin organized a homecoming party worthy of the movie, the band, and the fans. Highlights included Patrick Stickles from Titus absolutely nailing “Sixteen Blue,” Kevn Kinney’s lovely “Here Comes A Regular,” Tommy Ramone (who, you may remember, produced Tim) singing “If Only You Were Lonely,” – the list goes on, and on, and on, but was capped off (in my opinion) by the video above, Craig Finn and Tad Kubler doing “Within Your Reach.”
This was only my second Wild Flag show, having been out of town the first round of club shows. I paid full price to see them at Radio City, opening for Bright Eyes; even from 15 rows back in the canyon of Radio City, they ruled, and hard. With the space and the echo, that was where I first realized that the thing they reminded me of more than anything was Isle of Wight era Who – the lengthy jams, the interplay of drums and guitar. I know, you will tell me that you cannot compare a band that does not have a bass player with the Who, let alone Entwistle-in-a-skeleton-suit era Who, but somehow they are channeling that spirit.
THIS IS NOT A BAD THING.
This was only my second time seeing Bryan Ferry, believe it or not (and I can’t find any documented record of the first time I saw him, more on this later). I bought this ticket without knowing anything about the tour or having heard his new solo album, or even knowing if it was good (it is), but more because at this point I start to worry about ever seeing certain artists. It was an indulgence, and I was prepared to be a little bit of a tourist or an outsider at this show in exchange for being able to see Bryan Ferry on stage and hear him sing live.
When the Twilight Singers were forced to cancel the San Francisco date behind the latest album, Dynamite Steps, no one anticipated that the makeup date wouldn’t be just another show, somehow shoehorned into the tour schedule, but rather a first time one-off epic performance: Blackberry Belle, Dulli’s first post-Whigs magnum opus, performed in its entirety. Waiting on line to get into the venue, along with people from Chicago and Texas and Seattle and Canada I wondered if any San Franciscans had gotten themselves into their makeup date.
The emotional continuum of Blackberry Belle is a tough one for me. It’s a record that got me through an agonizing, lengthy breakup that I just could not get free of. I didn’t need to listen to music that was positive or uplifting, I wanted to hear the audible representation of how I felt inside and dig out of it that way. It’s kind of like the Whigs’ version of of “Come See About Me” – the way the Supremes sing it, it’s a cheery little ditty that’s hiding the main character’s true feelings. But when the Whigs did it? They turned it into a howling, dark, dissonant beast of a song that made you feel like you’d never heard it before. It owed as much to Husker Du as it did to Holland-Dozier-Holland – but make no mistake, it very much had a foot equally planted in both camps. Which is, of course, how I fell in love with the Afghan Whigs in the first place, and Dulli still does this shit.
Almost no one I know cares about Brian Fallon, or Gaslight Anthem, or Fallon’s latest project, Horrible Crowes. I get it, because I came dangerously close to disregarding him myself – the first time I saw him, in an opening slot, he was yet another guy with an acoustic guitar from New Jersey dropping massively unsubtle “Thunder Road” references. (I confess there may have been some snickering on my part at the time.)
But that was a while ago, and I am now the person who buys the poster from the Radio City show because it was the first Radio City show, and who blocks an hour in her calendar to run down to the Mercury Lounge at lunchtime to make sure I will get tickets to the first ever Horrible Crowes concert, at the Bowery Ballroom September 9.
I could, and should, someday write a long treatise about hauling myself from Tel Aviv to London (en route to the US for my sister’s wedding) in August of 1993 to see U2 at Wembley Stadium on the Zooropa tour, and how it altered the course of my life completely. That time is not now, but it would go a long way in explaining why I would spend 4 days hauling myself up to Montreal to see U2 play a show in the middle of a race track along with 79,999 other people, why I would get up at 6:30 on my day off and go sit on said racetrack for 8 hours, waiting on line, to then sprint down the racetrack in the heat and then hug a metal barrier for the next five hours until the band comes onstage… and I get a shot like the one above.
This was a wonderful evening, jam-packed with stone favorites from start to finish. Any set heavy on the Imperial Bedroom / Blood and Chocolate continuum will ring my chimes.
He did, however, perform the second-worst cover of “Purple Rain” I have ever seen.
So I read twitter from the “Our Band Could Be Your Life” show, and no one fucking said, “Craig Finn came out to do the ‘This is the Minneapolis police, the party is over…’ intro for ‘Kids Don’t Follow’”. They just said “Craig Finn came out in a police uniform to introduce Titus Andronicus.” DID NO ONE THERE GET THE REFERENCE?
Someone must’ve, because they yelled “FUCK YOU” exactly on cue (in the alleged Dave Pirner part. But in Minneapolis, everyone claims to be the person yelling FUCK YOU).
This is dead fucking on. Dead fucking on. Like, I would have probably exploded had I been there.
I owe a post on the Color Me Obsessed Minneapolis premiere. This week.
One of the things I have always loved and appreciated about Greg Dulli is that he’s not ashamed to be a frontman. The word “showmanship” isn’t anathema to him. When he is on stage, he is ON STAGE. So on a night when he’s filming the show for what I can only assume is commercial release, he’s going to turn it all the way up, hard. I’ve seen him do this with the Afghan Whigs, I’ve seen him do it with the Twilight Singers – even on the solo tour or with Lanegan on the Gutter Twins tour, Dulli is a like a magician the way he can grab the energy, flip it around, find it if it’s hiding, beg for it if he has to, demand it if it’s not meeting his needs, cajole it out from a shy crowd.
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