Bon Iver @ The Fox Theater

“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” That was Johnny Rotten’s classic rejoinder at the end of the last Sex Pistols show, at Winterland in San Francisco. And come to think of it, Mr. Rotten, I have had the feeling of being cheated many times – exorbitant ticket prices and convenience charges will do that. But seeing Bon Iver at the Fox Theater in Oakland on Thursday night was one of those rare great bargains – an hour of excellent music for just 22 bucks. Seeing a band touring behind a fine debut album is usually a guarantee of a good show, and this was no exception. Imagine seeing Neil Young during the Harvest tour, if that had been his debut, and you get some idea of the power of this concert experience.

Bon Iver’s debut, For Emma, Forever Ago was the work of Justin Vernon, who recorded the album in a cabin in the wilds of Wisconsin. To create the album’s haunting atmosphere, Vernon multi-tracked his voice and guitar to infinity, so the one issue I anticipated was how Bon Iver was going to capture that atmosphere without echo-boxes and/or backtracking. But the three piece band playing with Vernon beautifully sidestepped this issue through layers of haunting harmonies that in essence put four Justin Vernons on stage at the same time. Two members of the band were behind drum kits, and for ‘Skinny Love’ all three were banging away on drums to create the driving percussion of the recorded version of the song. During ‘re: stacks’ you could almost hear a pin drop (except for the drunken idiots jabbering away on the second level). The band crowded around a single microphone for a stunning unplugged cover of The Jayhawks’ ‘Tampa To Tulsa’, and Vernon whipped the crowd into sing-along mode for a spirited take of ‘For Emma’.

But the highlight of the evening was a non-album track called ‘Back In Wisconsin’, which came close to actually rocking out. Midway through its ten-minute running time, Vernon busted out a lengthy, psychedelic-tinged guitar solo that wouldn’t have been out of place in Pink Floyd’s ‘Echoes’ – an unexpected development that should give the casual observer much hope for the future of this band. But mostly this was an evening of haunting acoustic music – expertly rendered and rapturously received. On the backdrop behind the group was one of the best light shows I’ve seen in ages – a gently swirling field of smeared pastels that looked like a Monet painting come to life, and perfectly matched the pace of the music.

“Are you kidding me with this room?” Vernon asked the crowd midway through the show, gawking around at the luxurious venue his band was in the process of practically levitating off the ground. Later, he dropped that “This is going to be our last tour for awhile – we’re going to take some time and figure out what to do next.” If time is what Bon Iver needs to make more of this magic, I think I speak for everyone present on Thursday – take all the time you need fellas.

Doubleshot Tuesday: Stop Making Sense/Everyone Deserves Music

[Today: Spearhead burns down the house...]

Spearhead played The Fillmore in San Francisco on Saturday Night, and to my utter, jaw-dropping amazement, came out and opened for themselves as a high-energy Talking Heads cover band called The Rocking Heads. They proceeded to burn down the house with a mini-set of Talking Heads songs that stayed surprisingly faithful to the originals and whipped the capacity crowd into an ecstatic frenzy. In terms of pure sound, it’s hard to think of a whiter band than Talking Heads or a more afro-centric group than Spearhead, but that chasm was quickly bridged by ripping versions of ‘Psycho Killer’ ‘Girlfriend Is Better’ ‘Take Me To The River’ and more. Spearhead frontman Michael Franti was decked out in a big white suit (naturally) and dorky glasses, and looked like a genetic mutation of Bob Marley and David Byrne.

I could dig deep and try to find parallels between these groups, but it would be a disingenuous attempt to make sense out of a wild evening. And sometimes it’s better to stop making sense and just let the music flow. For those not familiar with their music, if Spearhead were a cocktail, this is what the recipe would look like:

1 part The Clash
1 part John Lennon
3 parts Bob Marley
Shake vigorously
Smoke a doobie
Serve chilled

Like Lennon, Marley and The Clash, Spearhead is committed to addressing social injustice and changing the world through music. But their influences extend well beyond those musical muckrakers, and during their main set, they quoted bits of songs by AC/DC, George Gershwin, Seals & Crofts, Neil Diamond and The Police, among others. So perhaps I shouldn’t have been too surprised by their opening set.

“This was really fun for all of us,” Franti said at the end of The Rocking Heads’ set, and he could have been speaking for everyone in the building. The Fillmore is a legendary venue that has hosted an untold number of great concerts through the years. You never know when you’re going to catch some magic there, but Saturday was one of those nights…

Listen: Girlfriend Is Better [Talking Heads]

Listen: Everyone Deserves Music [Spearhead]

*****

[Special thanks to our friends Tiffany & JD for getting the tickets and putting the evening together. We miss you guys...]

Steely Dan @ The Chicago Theatre

Steely Dan recently finished up a four-night run at the historic Chicago Theatre in which they played Aja (8/31), Gaucho (9/1) and The Royal Scam (9/3) in their entirety (the 9/4 show featured Internet requests). I was fortunate enough to be in the house for The Royal Scam along with my buddy Furr. We’d seen Steely Dan in the late-90’s in the Bay Area, and this show seemed like a good chance recapture our drunken, silly mojo from years gone by. We weren’t disappointed.

It’s worth noting that this show capped a whirlwind day that saw Furr and I drinking beer in Wrigley Field, browsing through record stores, eating hamburgers in an upscale Chicago eatery, and generally trying to recreate the non-stop fun of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Unfortunately, neither of us was able to sing ‘Danke Schoen’ on a moving float during a parade – but on the upside, no expensive vintage automobiles were destroyed either.

At any rate, we had just showed up and were excusing our way down the aisle to get to our seats when the house lights dimmed and the band came on. Steely Dan stopped touring back in the early 80’s because they couldn’t faithfully recreate their elaborately recorded albums. Guitarist Walter Becker and keyboardist Donald Fagen are noted perfectionists, so it wasn’t surprising to see them send a dozen musicians on stage to help them bring The Royal Scam to life. The band consisted of a four-piece horn section (tenor & alto sax, trumpet and trombone), three female backup singers, bass and drums, two guitarists (including Larry Carlton, who played on many of their albums) and a pianist (in addition to Fagen on keyboards). Clearly these guys weren’t fooling around.

Steely Dan is often mistaken for a wimpy pop group, but behind their perfectly polished exterior beats the heart of a vicious punk band. The Royal Scam is perhaps their angriest album, and the venom in the title track is proof of their passive aggression. Of course, their songs are literary vehicles full of hard luck characters and off-beat references. No band this side of the Velvet Underground so consistently reached into the gutter to find writing material, and no single album captures this angle of Steely Dan better than The Royal Scam.

The show opened with a Becker & Fagen-less instrumental jazz interlude that allowed the band to show off its considerable chops, before Becker & Fagen joined the group and launched into ‘Kid Charlemagne’. Seeing an album live in its entirety is cool for many reasons, but best among them might be the little musical accents that get lost on LP. From the trombone in ‘Sign In Stranger’ to Carlton’s hot licks throughout to Fagen pawing his keyboard like a big bear and throwing his head around like Ray Charles, there was a lot to absorb and observe during this concert.

Except for a limp version of ‘The Fez’ (Becker, Fagen and Carlton thought little enough of the tune that they left the stage – c’mon fellas, the album’s only 9 songs long!) this was an outstanding rendering of a classic 70’s album. Of course, after they were done with The Royal Scam, they played another dozen gems from their extensive catalog. Highlights included the backup singers taking lead vocals on a sultry version of ‘Dirty Work’ and Fagen rocking the melodica on a princely version of ‘Aja’.

It was an evening of luckless pedestrians, Turkish union dues, and dynamite. And the crowd stood and cheered…

*****

SET LIST

[Untitled Intro]
Kid Charlemagne
Caves Of Altamira
Don’t Take Me Alive
Sign In Stranger
The Fez
Green Earrings
Haitian Divorce
Everything You Did
The Royal Scam
Hey Nineteen
Dirty Work
Black Friday
I Got The News
Aja
Parker’s Band
Live Wire (originally by Martha & The Vandellas)
Peg
Third World Man
Josie
My Old School
Reeling In The Years (encore)

Rodriguez @ Slim’s

Sixto Rodriguez played in San Francisco on Friday night, for just the second time since the 1970 release of his cult classic album Cold Fact. Rodriguez didn’t headline a show in the United States until August 2008 because Cold Fact unfairly tanked on release. Against all odds, that album would later find a platinum second life in South Africa and Australia that allowed him to resurrect his career in the 90’s. His music is stripped-down psychedelic folk, a few degrees angrier than Dylan, but with that same kind of dense wordplay and acute social observation. Rodriguez is a Detroit native, so much of his music concerns the plight of the down-and-out and includes plenty of rough edges and heavy language, which may have contributed to the stop/start nature of his career.

But regardless of the winding road that he took to get there, Rodriguez hit the stage a few minutes after 11pm, along with an eight-piece band that included sax, trombone, and flute. Comeback concerts of this sort are always nail-biting affairs, especially when the artist involved has been in moth balls for so long, and I’ve grown to love the accompanying album as much as Cold Fact. Shuggie Otis broke my heart under similar circumstances a few years back with a horrible, horrible, horrible (I could just keep typing it forever) show that emptied The Fillmore in record time and left me pitching his discs in the recycling bin. So when Rodriguez hit the stage, my fingers were crossed… tightly.

He was led to the front of the stage by a young handler, and it was obvious that his sight isn’t all it could be. When the guitarist in his band started showing him the fingering for the first song, I thought we were all doomed to a long evening in hell. And then he started playing, and everything was ok. His voice is more frail than what’s on record from 40 years ago, but that’s to be expected. And other than that, he sounded shockingly good. His band really brought it, especially on a fantastic version of ‘Sugar Man’ that included a squalling horn freakout that would have made Pharaoh Sanders smile.

‘Establishment Blues’ was another highlight – it’s always impressive to hear a 66-year old man throw himself into lyrics like “This system’s gonna fall soon, to an angry young tune/And that’s a concrete cold fact.” His set list also included a bunch of other fine songs that nobody’s ever heard of – songs that had this less-than-capacity crowd singing along, cheering wildly, and yelling out props for the flautist. Late in his set, in response to one of the many shouted WE LOVE YOU’s from the crowd, Rodriguez gazed out from behind his cooler-than-cool sunglasses and had a moment of recognition. “I know my audience,” he said with a big grin. “Drive safe man.”

*****

[Partial set list...]

The Black Keys @ The Fox Theater

The Black Keys brought their rough, distorted blues-rock to the historic Fox Theater in Oakland on Saturday night. This grand theater opened in 1928 and served as a movie house until 1966, when it was closed down. It wouldn’t re-open again until February of this year, but one evening in this splendid art-deco palace was worth the generations-long wait.

Fresh off a main-stage appearance at Coachella the night before, Akron, OH’s favorite sons played for just over an hour to a rapturous capacity crowd. The Black Keys are unique in that they found a great sound and have stuck by it, avoiding the trap of re-inventing themselves in order to be perceived as evolving artistically. To see them live is to be surprised at how much racket a two-man band can put forth. Guitarist Dan Auerbach cuts loose with powerful feedback-drenched blues licks, while Patrick Carney bangs the drums in a manner alternately tribal and bluesy. Auerbach’s vocals are so buried beneath the Sabbath-like sludge of his guitar and the ferocity of Carney’s drums that it’s best to just sit back and let the music wash over you – The Keys are meant to be enjoyed, not studied (but for those so inclined, a complete setlist can be scoped here).

The Fox Theater stage is flanked by a pair of ten-foot tall bronze Buddhas, complete with glowing eyes and ruby red heart – a nice touch that could have been inspired by Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom. The detailing in the facade that extends more than four stories above the stage was ornate enough to capture the eye time and again, and throughout the building – from the Moroccan lamps to the hand-woven rugs – it appears that no expense was spared in restoring the building to its past glory. The Bay Area is blessed with many beautiful rooms for live music (The Fillmore, Great American Music Hall, Warfield, and Paramount Theater spring to mind), but the renovated Fox Theater is impressive enough to leave even a veteran concert-goer slack-jawed and gawking. “Nice theater. Isn’t this fancy?” Auerbach asked the crowd midway through the show. “I put on my fancy shirt, I’m ready to sit at the big kids’ table.”

Review: Black Crowes @ The Fillmore

The Black Crowes hit The Fillmore this week for a run of four shows that close out their current 90-city tour. The band is on the road in support of their recent release Warpaint – their first album in seven years and their best since 1994’s Amorica. Brothers Chris (lead vocals) and Rich Robinson (guitar) have a notoriously rocky personal relationship, but they were in perfect sync from the opening tune on Monday night. This iteration of the group features Luther Dickinson (late of the North Mississippi All-Stars, and son of legend James Luther Dickinson) on co-lead and slide guitar, and it’s a band that’s obviously been sharpened by the rigors of a long tour.

I’ve been going to The Fillmore since shortly after it re-opened (after seismic retrofitting) in 1994, and every so often it’s possible to catch a glimpse of what the scene must have been like back in the day. Monday was one of those nights. If The Crowes’ pre-show burning of sage wasn’t enough, their boogie stomp rock – reminiscent of vintage Stones and Faces – did the trick and turned The Fillmore into the world’s loudest time machine. “Everyone with long hair gets to go on the spaceship first,” said Chris Robinson by way of introducing a tune midway through the evening, and with his Jesus beard and mane, there’s little doubt that Robinson himself stands near the front of that particular line.

The band played a set list short on well-known material, but they kept up a consistent groove that moved the crowd for two full hours. Highlights included a sweltering, swaggering version of Taj Mahal’s ‘Chevrolet’ and a pair of songs – ‘Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution’ and ‘Locust Street’ – from Warpaint. They encored with ‘She Talks To Angels’ and a raucous version of The Band’s ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’. The latter was personally redemptive for me, as I had been permanently scarred in 1995 by watching the Jerry Garcia Band perform a ragged, never-ending version of the song that drove me to the brink of madness.

Cleveland can have its Hall of Fame – the real rock cathedral is at the corner of Fillmore and Geary streets in San Francisco. With its velvet curtains, crystal chandeliers suspended above a parquet ballroom floor, and upstairs bars stuffed with posters from past rock glories, The Fillmore is a remarkable building to visit anytime. Having The Black Crowes in the house just made the whole experience that much sweeter…

Review: Black Lips @ GAMH

Chaos is the name of the game at a Black Lips show. Photo by dk.

The Great American Music Hall opened its hallowed doors Monday (and Tuesday) night for the lunacy of Atlanta’s Black Lips. It’s tempting to say that the Lips’ brand of garage-punk went out of style shortly after the 1972 release of Lenny Kaye’s famous Nuggets compilation, but in truth this kind of music has always lived in the margins of popular culture. It’s no coincidence that the Lips were mentored by Bomp! Records impresario Greg Shaw. The living legacy of Shaw’s musical vision was on display Monday night, and it was a sight to behold: pop music laced with the psychedelic fuzz of garage rock and performed with the frantic, anything-goes spirit of punk.

The gilded hall was about half full – to be expected considering the day of the week and the musical margins mentioned above. But this was no passive audience, content to sit back and nod along. More than half the people in the building were involved in a rather feisty mosh pit, and the energy on the floor was matched by the whirling dervishes on stage. When the band launched into ‘O Katrina!’ and ‘Bad Kids’ the stage became an ocean beach, pounded by wave upon wave of bodies. By the end of the night, that stage was littered with crushed beer cups, stray brassieres, a set of car keys, and a lone Chuck Taylor high top. Impressive damage for a crowd of about 300 people.

Black Lips are gloriously ragged, but there’s a method to their madness. Drummer Joe Bradley is steady as a rock, and bassist Jared “Hondo” Swilley is on point enough of the time to provide a solid bottom, freeing guitarists Cole Alexander and Ian St. Pe – and I swear I’m not making these names up – to wander off key, elicit feedback with their mic stands, or climb the speaker stack in a big floppy pilgrim hat. Late in their set, Alexander (the pilgrim) called to the stage hands “I’m tangled up real bad here.” He was talking about the myriad chords connected to his effect pedals, but could easily have been referring to his band’s psychedelic web of sound.

Review: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

Yes, Robert Plant is still a golden god. Photo courtesy of SF Chronicle

Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park provided the perfect setting for the music of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss yesterday, as they brought a rousing conclusion to the opening day of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 8. The meadow is ringed with gnarled, weather-beaten, ancient trees that pay stately tribute to the ocean winds that whip through the park. A full cloud cover hung overhead, and the air was full of energy and excitement. A crowd of 25,000 (my best estimate) packed into the meadow before Plant and Krauss made the stage around 5:20pm to thunderous applause.

They didn’t disappoint. Considering that Plant elected to tour with this band instead of joining in a lucrative Led Zeppelin reunion tour, it was great to hear him, Krauss, and their 4-piece band knock a trio of Zep covers out of the park. First up was a somber, countrified ‘Black Dog’ that saw Stewart Duncan go at his fiddle like a Nashville version of Jimmy Page. ‘Black Country Woman’ was a nice surprise, and a reminder that country music has always lurked in the shadows of Zeppelin’s catalogue. Finally, the opening notes of ‘Battle Of Evermore’ was a goose-bump inducing moment that brought an audible GASP! from the crowd.

But the Led Zeppelin covers were far from the only highlights of the evening. Plant & Krauss hit some of the high points (‘Rich Woman’ ‘The Letter’ and ‘Fortune Teller’) from last year’s critically acclaimed album Raising Sand. Krauss turned in a lovely version of her ‘Down To The River To Pray’ backed by the harmony vocals of Plant, Duncan and Buddy Miller. Plant pulled out the maracas for an outstanding take on his ‘I’m In The Mood’ that morphed into the traditional tune ‘Matty Groves’ before going back into ‘Mood’. The tune showed off the band’s musical range – an easy blurring of the lines between bluegrass, blues, folk, and country.

“Any mavericks here tonight?” Plant joked in his first comment to the crowd, but he’s something of a maverick himself these days. Rather than re-hashing his ancient past, playing Zeppelin songs that will always remain the same, he’s out on the trail with a bunch of musicians who are breaking new ground. No wonder he seems to be enjoying himself so much.

Concert Review: Infiltrator On “E” St.

Last night I went and saw Bruce Springsteen at the Oakland Arena. For those who know me well, this is probably the third most suprising statement that I could put into print (right behind “the sex change operation was a success” and “here’s my new cell phone number”). In other words, I’ve never been a particular fan of his music. But I decided to go for three reasons: 1) Springsteen is a living legend, and I just wanted to see the guy do his thing, 2) So nobody could ever again tell me that I don’t “get” his music because I’ve never seen him live, and 3) My friend Aram is a raving Springsteen fan, and he offered me the ticket. I figured if I was ever going to catch “the vibe”, this would be the time.

I can say with utter certainty that before last night, I’d never been to show where I didn’t recognize a single song until the encore. No joke. It is truly a strange feeling to be in an arena full of people and think “the only other person here who doesn’t know the words to this song is the 9-year old kid two seats over. And he might.” So that taxed my enjoyment a bit. However, there was a 60 year-old Gallagher look-alike in the GA section on the floor who spent most of the evening either posing like an opera singer (slow songs), prancing about like a ballet dancer (mid-tempo numbers) or spinning around like an insane, curly-haired top. He made life miserable for everyone around him, and provided me with roughly 33% of the value of my (not inconsiderable) entertainment dollar. For all I know, it was Gallagher. Bravo to you sir, whoever you were.

One thing that became clear to me as the evening wore on is that a guitar in Springsteen’s hands is merely a prop to direct his band or incite the crowd. In fact, I started to wonder if he was even plugged in. For all his guitar histrionics, his actions on the strings never actually changed the sound of the music coming through the PA. Call me crazy, call me deaf, but he uses the guitar the way David Lee Roth uses blond bimbos – to great effect and little consequence. [Insert your own male enhancement joke here].

But that doesn’t mean that herr Boss doesn’t still have the magic. On one number, the band sparked up the intro to ZZ Top’s ‘La Grange’ and Bruce went off on the harmonica, unleashing a series of bluesy riffs that sent shivers through the crowd. In the blink of an eye, 35 years melted away, and suddenly it was easy to see the guy that played his ass off every night in third rate bars along the East Coast, scrapping to make a name for himself.

And then there were the encores. As I said, I didn’t recognize a single tune until the band lit into ‘Thunder Road’ and drove the crowd into ecstasy. This was followed by a ballistic version of ‘Born To Run’ – played with the house lights up, and the crowd going into revelries. And at that point, with everyone singing along, and Bruce helping 10,000 people trade their wheels for wings, you didn’t have to be a fan to get serious goosebumps.