So, yeah, last night was Yo La Tengo with Calexico opening at The Buckhead Theater. Apologies for not posting more yesterday, but when I left for the copy shop at 4:30 to make four copies of a report for my job, I had no idea that it would take me three hours to complete. As it was, I ran directly from the copiers to The Buckhead Theater, stopping home only to pick up my Will Call printout, and got to the show at about 8:00, a half hour before Calexico started the evening.
It was my first time at The Buckhead Theater. The BT is actually the restored former Roxy, which I hadn't been to either, even though it's a mere three miles from my home. Go figure. Anyway, it's a nice venue and like Terminal West still has that "new car smell." It has a large stage, a balcony, and really spacious rooms up front for drinks, the merch table, and coat check.
Back in 1984, when Yo La Tengo first formed, Buckhead was a very different place than it is now, and I had spent many an evening socializing and partying in the old neighborhood at bars, restaurants, and nightclubs like Good Old Days, Carlos McGee's, Aunt Charlie's, Peachtree Cafe, the Five Paces Inn, Texas State Line Barbecue, and the Steamhouse Lounge, among others. Now, it's all boutiques and shops for the One Percenters or One Percent wannabes, and it actually now feels a little incongruous to be listening to live music, much less good live music, in the area.
But enough nostalgia. "The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime," Pink Floyd once sang (or as the Gang of Four put it, "Nostalgia, it's no good"). Last night was an evening of good live music, stating with the opening set by Calexico.
Calexico formed from members of The Friends of Dean Martinez, one of my favorite instrumental, post-rock bands of the '90s. Led by guitarist and singer Joey Burns, the band merges indie rock with mariachi and Tejano music styles. The band is currently touring as a septet with many of the members playing multiple instruments, including two trumpeters, accordion, pedal steel, and vibes. Their sound is exciting and uplifting, and as soon as the music began, I forgot all of my troubles back at the copy shop.
The group includes everything I like in an indie band. Upright bass? Check.
Horns? Check.
Vibes? Check.
Accordion playing multi-instrumentalists? Check.
More guitars? Check.
When they weren't playing together mariachi-style, trumpeter Jacob Valenzuela also contributed several terrific vocals in Spanish, while trumpeter Martin Wenk occasionally filled in on accordion. All in all, it was a wonderful set of great music, with just the right amount of jalapenos to spice up the night.
But as good as Calexico was, it was Yo La Tengo who ruled the night. Although they're been around for some 30 years now, this was actually my first time seeing them, and I'm already kicking myself for all of the missed opportunities - I've seen them billed so many times, yet never found it in me to make a it a set before.
The band formed as the husband/wife duo of Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley in 1984, with bassist James McNew joining the band around 1990. The band can make a reasonable claim at being the original indie rock outfit, and their musical styles encompass punk, post-punk, folk rock, noise pop, dream pop, ambient, and jangle rock. In other words, they're all over the map and are happy to explore and stretch themselves, while never content in being stuck in just one place.
The band is famous for its large back catalog and impressive selection of covers, as well as their annual Eight Nights of Hanukkah shows at their native Hoboken's Maxwell's. I understand that some of their cover songs at last year's Maxwell's event included The Fugs' Frenzy, The Beatles' Eight Days a Week, Dylan's You Ain't Going Nowhere, Adam & the Ants' Antmusic, The Velvet Underground's Heroin and Sister Ray, Blue Oyster Cult's Burnin' For You, Neil Young's Time Fades Away, and Sun Ra's Nuclear War (which was actually their best-selling single), the latter performed with members of the Sun Ra Arkestra. Their 2012 Hanukkah show also included this feedback-drenched guitar orgy, which should give you a pretty good idea of how they sounded much of last night:
The Soundcloud gadget above is from the exemplary NYC Taper, which has most of the 2012 Yo La Tengo Hannukah shows available for free download.
Last night's set started out loud and electric, with lots of post-punk songs and compositions and members of the band exchanging roles and instruments. Mr. McNew even took over on the drums from Ms. Hubley during the middle of a song without either missing so much as a single beat.
Midway through the set, Mr. Kaplan switched to acoustic guitar and led the band through several quiet songs from their new album, Fade, with Ms. Hubley on vocals. Although slower than the previous songs, the band still managed to keep the audience spellbound and quiet, and after a couple of those quiet, acoustic songs, Mr. Kaplan joked, "Now, we're going to slow things down a little."
Sometimes they were Sonic Youth and sometimes they were Low. Sometimes they were the Velvet Underground and sometimes they were REM. And sometimes they were Calexico, inviting the twin trumpeters on stage with them on one song.
The highlight of the evening, though, was the closer to their set, a long instrumental jam which built up and up as one member after another of Calexico came on stage and joined in, and slowly wound back down again as the members left the stage one by one to rapturous applause from the audience. The piece lasted for what felt like a blissful eternity, and even though it was all built around one very simple chord progression, I don't think anyone in the audience wanted to hear it end.
For their encore, the band went back to quiet, acoustic mode, ending the night with Ms. Hubley singing a lovely cover of a Johnny Cash song, with vibes by Calexico's John Convertino.
I don't mean it ironically when I sat that last night's show was the best concert of the year. If and when I look back on 2013 and try to select a "Best Of" show, last night's performance will have to be given serious consideration.
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