Last Saturday night I went to see Yo La Tengo and it was one the best concert experiences of my life. This was the third time I had technically seen them, but the first was at Bonnaroo and I only caught the last half of the set, and the second time I got so drunk that I had to go sleep on the sidewalk outside the venue halfway through the show. This time though, I arrived exactly at ticket time clean and sober. Well, mostly. I was able to easily secure a spot on the stage right in front of the guitar setup as pretty much everyone there already was sitting in the seats. It ended up being literally the best spot in the house. My view:
Tenement Halls opened and I was not very impressed. It wasn't so much bad, but too conventional poppy and boring for me. Had it been a 5 song set, I think it would have been fine, but 10+ songs from these guys were a little too much for me. After that, though, Yo La Tengo took the stage with
Ira Kaplan on the keys and
James McNew on guitar for the first two songs and a second, primitive drum set for the third. After that, McNew moved over to bass and Kaplan took the guitar and went into
Pass The Hatchet, I Think I'm Good Kind, the opener on Yo La's newest LP,
I Am Not Afraid Of You and I Will Beat Your Ass. Before the show, we decided to makeup the term "drogging" for the psychedelic drone-prog-rock jamming that artists such as Kaplan and Thurston Moore employ (someone needs to make a
wikipedia page for that), and much drogging was to be had from this point on. They were on top of their game for this show and had alot of funny moments such as McNew telling the story of meeting a bum in LP5, or
Georgia Hubley distracting Kaplan while he was talking, or them declaring their love for
The Masquerade, or Kaplan stopping
Sugarcube about 30 seconds in to tell us about a Jethro Tull show they had just watched where Ian Anderson kept stopping a song. I have to say that seeing Ira convulsing and shaking in the groove while playing like a madman on guitar is a transcending experience:
Pretty much still in shock from the pure awesomeness of the main set, I didn't notice Ira starring at my t-shirt at the beginning of the first set until he addressed me by "hey you with the Built To Spill shirt" and went on to say that I could make a request for all the Built To Spill fans here tonight. I thought he was getting crazy and wanted to do a cover so I requested
Carry the Zero, My favourite BTS song. "No, I meant one of our songs" Much laughter ensued and then they played a spectacular version of
Stockholm Syndrome (my favourite YTL song) for me with a very Doug Martsch-esque take on the solo. I don't think I've ever felt more of a connection with a band on so many different levels at a show ever before. But that wasn't it. After taking a request from a chick, and playing another great song I didn't recognize, they came out for a second, 3 song encore including a really cool version of
Autumn Sweater that had Georgia pounding out beats, James hitting a groove, and Ira singing and hitting a few piano notes here and there. Oh yeah, then they came out for a 3rd encore.
Basically, if you have never seen these guys, you're missing out. The new album is incredible and they are amazing musicians. I'm hearing rumors that they may be at Bonnaroo this year. I sure hope so.
Labels: Live Review, photos, Yo La Tengo
