Broken Social Scene

Fig. 1 Read description of BSS’s Lollapalooza performance.

Fig. 2 Take the energy of the Lolla show, cram it into the 500-person capacity Vogue theater. After that subtract a few of the band members, leaving the tally at 9 for that night, but add whiskey and some sort of barbiturate to lead singer Kevin Drew’s diet. Our spot directly in front of guitarist Andrew Whiteman, also the front man of Apostle of Hustle, allowed us to see the equal parts emotion and insanity that make Broken Social Scene so imaginative. The amount of musicianship within each band member, but especially the tightly woven core of Drew and bassist Brendan Canning performing that night, was outstanding; their facial expressions and elasticity while playing were bordering on metaphysical and out-of-body experiences. After perching on one leg during his solo, could Whiteman position himself any more awkwardly? Can Drew look any more uncoordinated while he melts his fret board and mic at the same time? How could Canning play such intricate bass lines while hopping from atop monitors and into the crowd? But holy shit, man, the auditory atmosphere sculpted out of the dark inside the bar was richer than cream cheese. Unrivaled. No contest.

Cat Power

A few months ago my friend Joe and I missed a Cat Power show in Chicago because of a last minute cancellation by Miss Chan Marshall. This made her appearance at the Vic in early September a tough wait, but a performance more than worth it.

We arrived at the show just as Cat Power and the Memphis Rhythm Band took the stage. Each additional cast member breathed a soul into their instrument and microphone, echoing Miss Marshall’s lavishly rich timbre. I could feel the sound the band exuded, but not just because of the volume; the Rhythm Band was comprised of people who actually lived the soul scene of the 60’s and 70’s, not just read about it in a coffee shop magazine. When the voice of Cat Power’s weathered guitarist sounded like well whiskey and clover cigarettes it’s because he spent a good amount of his life drinking well whiskey and smoking clover cigarettes. Physically feeling that difference was 100% better than just listening to a record.

The set list hit everything from ‘The Covers Record’ to ‘You Are Free’ and even a few of her newest songs from ‘The Greatest.’ She transfixed the audience with her piano and guitar playing while effortlessly working in bits of schtick and subtly humorous dialogue. Marshall’s voice resonated warmly in the Vic’s atmosphere, exciting the audience into screams and hollers and drawing them back to hushed coos the next minute. If I learned anything it’s that Chan Marshall’s sultry southern lull should be some kind of national treasure.

Cat Power’s show came to a close with an encore encapsulating her diverse musical background: they performed a three song set consisting of an old spiritual hymn, the Rolling Stone’s ‘(Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,’ and Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy.’ The hymnal rang out from the bottom of Marshall’s throat, her two backup singers perfectly following suit. Satisfaction? Even her Mick Jagger impression was spot on! She kicked and stomped all over the stage, pouting her lips and throwing her voice around; everyone and everything was sufficiently rocked. The evening’s closer was ‘Crazy,’ the recent Gnarls Barkley hit, stripped of all it’s studio production and (kickass) turntable technology. All that it took to recreate the song was Marshall and her pianist, softly strolling through the chorus and verses. The crowd was incited into a hand clapping, foot stomping, sing-a-long frenzy that left everyone sighing and turning to the people around them saying: “Was that a great show or what?” Which lead me to turn to my left and coincidentally run into my friend, Sarah, who also thought the show was sweet. What a show.

Anathallo

The first time seeing the seven member band open for The Format left me standing with my mouth agape. I had never heard or read anything about this group of Mt. Pleasant, Michiganites, and the preceding opener scolded the crowd for their initial lack-luster applause:

Singer- ‘Hey guys, thanks for coming out tonight. We’ve got a few more songs and up next is Anathallo.’
Crowd-(Unenthusiastic smattering of applause. Some ‘woos.’)
Singer- ‘You guys are gonna feel like jerks for not clapping after you hear them play.’

Anathallo followed and converted the entire audience. They didn’t just get some applause and some charity enthusiasm, they unabashedly performed (not just played instruments, but performed) and made believers of us all. Lead singer Matt Joynt finished the set by bashfully admitting, ‘This is largest crowd we’ve ever played for, and I’ve never heard anyone be so loud during the loud parts and so quiet during the quiet parts. So thank you, truly, thank you.’

Seeing them at Bucky McAwesome’s was an equally as memorable live show. We drove to the Bloomington, IN venue expecting to see a marquee with “ANATHALLO TONIGHT” in lights. Instead, we pulled over in a quaint college neighborhood at the address on our directions and saw a one story house with six students drinking from red solo cups and eating grilled brats on the porch. What? So we walked up to the students and asked: ‘Um, hey. Is this where the Anathallo show is?’ One of the girls replied: ‘Yup, in the basement. You guys want a brat or something to drink?’ … I not only love Anathallo’s music and personality but I’m also the rest of their fan base. What happened was that some of Anathallo’s friends attend IU and were hosting them at their house due to a canceled show in Columbus, IN. So their friends opened their doors and their hearts to everyone who came. Too much.

The music started and more people crammed into the basement, peeking and straining on tip toes to see over the shaggy haired college kids huddled together in the front. Captivating the crowd with every hand clap and time signature change, Matt Joynt and company cultivated their sound from the basement’s meager acoustics and shabby carpeted floors. The set was cut short, however, when police arrived to shut down the house party. Apparently the number of people inside the house not only constituted a fire hazard but a noise violation as well. Hopefully the next show will be a little longer and have a set longer than 20 minutes, but other than that the experience was worth it.

The Format

The Format have some serious cojones; not only have they continued to tour despite lack of support from a label, but they’ve put out a new record as well. With all that work, you’d think that a band traveling as fully stocked as an Aerosmith limo bar would be pretty worn out. But they don’t, they never run out of energy. Ever. From the opening song to the second encore. Not to mention they’re an indie pop band used to hour and a half to two hour sets, not some marathon tested jam band. The entire audience felt the vibrant music down to the bones in their toes and danced like their lives depended on it, the band mimicking each step. The Format cultivated their own atmosphere inside Chicago’s Metro theatre, weaving rich currant-colored curtains and sprouting confetti spouting streamers with each following song. The music isn’t the only high quality facet of The Format’s live show, the lyrics are top shelf. Writing about everything from the snobbery of myspace (Boys with swooping hair cuts / are bringing me down / taking pictures of themselves) to the difficulty of finding a new record label (Meet me in the middle / come on let’s make up a dance / and we’ll agree to call it the compromise. / There’s no sense in complaining / it doesn’t change our minds / take me by the hand let’s compromise), they cover some unique ground with wit to spare and without whining. Verdict: The Format is good for your mind as well as your body.

Margot and the Nuclear So & So's

Bands from Indiana don’t usually get out of the Midwest; once in a while a stray hair will stand out to momentarily grab the attention of passersby, only to be cut down by an L.A. or N.Y. critic and made to blend in with the rest of the Aeropostale-shag they think we all live with. One Midwestern hair that goes by the name “Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s” is a little too kinked and resilient to be cut, however. Margot boasts an eight member roster that revels in everything from your standard rock line up (guitar, bass, drum kit) to some of the more unconventional stuff (bells, cello, trumpet, keys, and a mishmash of thrift store drums that Casey Tennis beats the absolute shit out of). But they’ve blasted out of the humdrum, the malaise, and are pretty much leaving prairie fires in the wake of their tours and raising eyebrows on both coasts. The hometown crowd at the Midwest Music Summit celebrated Margot as only a hometown crowd could, but there was a little bit of contempt in lead singer Richard Edwards’ posturing and lyrics. He turned his back on the crowd as he curled around the mic, hunching his shoulders so that it was almost tucked into the folds of his body like a mouse being squeezed by a boa constrictor. But it was the look that Richards gave the crowd, who openly loved him and screamed the lyrics back at the band, that seemed a little strange to me. He glanced at everyone like we, the plebian troglodytes of Indianapolis, didn’t deserve to be there; he looked at us like we tourists, and it kind of hurt. Don’t get me wrong, I still think Margot are pretty enjoyable to listen to and see live…I just hope they don’t forget about the haircut they started out in.

Murder by Death

Murder by Death was billed as an act on one of the better evenings of this year’s Midwest Music Summit, Indianapolis’s answer to Austin’s SXSW festival. Although Murder by Death have been around for years touring both coasts and everywhere in between, I’d never gotten the chance to actually see the Bloomington, IN quartet up close. Wait, a national alt-punk/death-country act from the soybean fields of Indiana? You’re damn right, and not only are they from Bloomington but off/on again students at IU as well…lead singer Adam Turla is even a theology major. Heavy. It would seem that that theology major helped fuel a good portion of the lyrics on “In Bocca Al Lupo,” Murder by Death’s latest release that deals with damnation and salvation, tinged with the dry, blood red dust of the old west. Each member dressed with the well-worn, antiquated look of a bartender in a John Wayne movie; they wore white button up cloth shirts, suspenders, old carpenter’s work boots, and brown canvas pants. Every member, that is, except the kick ass cello player; Sarah Balliet swung her head and thrust her shoulders in time with the band, holding her electric cello between the knees of her torn, southern-belle-époque dress. Turla sang like a whiskey soaked Johnny Cash from the second circle, crooning and wooing the audience the entire time. “This next one I wrote about a tango in hell,” Turla said before descending into a swirling up tempo-ed number. Heavy.

Broken Social Scene

The Canadian collective, made up of the majority of the Arts & Crafts label, came with more than just a physical presence. For a band that claims as many as 27 members at any given time, through the past few years BSS has risen steadily throughout the indie rock scene where some quartets have fallen apart after one album. My God could they create! So many drummers, guitarists, organ players, and singers coalescing into aural gold; BSS shimmered, soared, and demurely drew the attention of EVERYONE in range of their speaker towers…including the mob of people across the lawn pre-congregating for the festival headliner: the Red Hot Chili Peppers. When it was time for BSS’s set to come to a close they were met with tides of waving hands and audience members pleading for an encore. Their time was up though, and the concert organizers wouldn’t let them continue; the lights flashed and dimmed while every band member bowed, thanking the audience for their support and love. The crowd wanted more though, and when BSS left the stage for good everyone moved around to the side of the stage to continue applauding while those unable to continue to cheer on BSS began booing RHCP. Booing. They booed what festival promoters were calling the “biggest and best band in the world,” and I knew that RHCP couldn’t top the show Broken Social Scene had just given so we left and went home. I wanted to end the weekend on the highest note possible and there’s no way anything could be higher than that. Whoa.

The Shins

A band I’d been waiting to see for quite a long time, the Shins attracted arguably the largest crowd of the festival. They definitely disappointed the largest crowd of the festival, however, by having awful sound and playing looser than a high school garage band made of twine.

Andrew Bird

My second time seeing Andrew Bird perform, he put on another outstanding show. A grand yet bare stage, filled only by Mr. Bird and his drummer Martin Dosh, sat underneath the two men creating the ocean of gorgeous sounds. A violin, a guitar, two keyboards, a drum kit, and a whistle meshed into this cacophonous swirling wall that blew everyone’s hair back. I mean, I looked around after a song and people’s mouths were agape, just hanging wide open like raised garage doors. Unreal! Andrew Bird stomped around stage shaking like a politician under the weight of his words, one arm pointing up into the air promising, “there will be snacks, oh yes, there will be snacks.” Snacks!? The profound innocence of it all…just too much. He had the purest, strongest voice of anyone at the entire festival.

Nickel Creek

I’d heard of this bluegrass trio before lolla thanks to a few friends’ decidedly favorable reviews but had never actually heard them. The twenty minutes of their performance that I saw made me glad to have been exposed to them; the fiddling was light but surefooted and the bassline chugged along like the steady flow of a backyard creek. They even covered a Radiohead song, the title of which escapes me, which sent the crowd into a slow ripple of “ohhh!”s as each audience member realized what the loud speakers were emitting.

Thievery Corporation

The product of French dub, dancehall, house, electronica, and hip-hop, Thievery Corporation was quite a feat to behold. Brightly colored lights cascaded over the heads and shoulders in the crowd as the rhythms swelled and cooled, causing people to dance harder than I’ve ever seen, ever. One woman shook her torso, arms, and legs so hard I thought they were each going to snap off in time with the beat. It was like she was a sound wave pulsing and moving in every direction but never breaking. Any band that can induce such powerful dancing is ok in my book.

http://www.thieverycorporation.com/

The Go! Team

I can only describe them as some kind of brit-pop planeteers on speed. The Go! Team consisted of a Black frontwoman with a great voice (who I’d like to date/marry…if she’s single), an incredibly talented Asian guitarist and an accomplished Asian drummer, and two white guys filling in on bass/keys/backing guitar. Tons of jumping, rable-rousing chorus calls, and tireless enthusiasm, The Go! Team must run marathons in rehearsals to have that kind of energy.

http://www.thegoteam.co.uk/flash/GoKids.html

Nada Surf

Nada Surf displayed their veterans’ status in live music with one of the most polished and classy performances of the festival. They seemed to stay away from their upbeat songs and stayed content to keep the audience wading in the more solemn end of their catalog. They did attempt to mimic a big 60’s soul number by asking the crowd to help them become the ‘4.000 Tops,’ a request we were only to happy to help with.

http://www.nadasurf.com/

Be Your Own Pet

A band that was raved about pre-show by a few peers, my overall impression of BYOP was lukewarm. Watching them brought back memories of watching amateur hardcore shows at neighborhood pool houses in high school, the only difference was that BYOP brought less political ape shit and more hipster cool. The 19/20 year olds thrashed around onstage, wailing and smashing chords out of their instruments. I’d heard about the clever lyrics BYOP’s frontwoman fired off on albums but couldn’t understand the garbled tantrums bleeding over the druitarbassum mash coming from the amps. They certainly had energy though, maybe too much; the frontwoman ended up screaming and trembling herself into the early stages of heat exhaustion and puked on the stage. Not a bad band overall, but I’d trade some energy for a bit more musicianship.

http://www.beyourownpet.net/

Tonedeff

This rapper won some sort of ‘last band standing’ competition and the grand prize was an opening spot during the second day of lolla. The hip hop duo, the sideman’s name escapes me, had more energy than most cyclone-kicking gymnasti-punk bands. Tonedef and his man covered every square foot of stage floor with hip hop hooraying that got everyone to throw a hand in the air and wave it around. Only one double take: the lyrics were filthy (not too surprising) but were self-incriminating (surprising). The title of his single was “I’m a Pervert,” a song so crass that even the gristled roadies murmured an “Aw, shit man. That ain’t cool.”

http://qn5.com/tonedeff/

Death Cab

The crowd for Death Cab was the worst at lolla, hands down. Between the group of underage kids drunk off of a water bottle filled with cheap vodka starting a “Go Sox!” chant and the muscleman next to me laying game on a girl almost too drunk to stand, I became slightly irritated. Death Cab’s performance transcended the idiocy of the aforementioned clown-show, however, proving they deserve their lofty place above the rest of the mediocre OC hyped bands. They whipped their heads and guitars with unexpected ferocity and captivated their sea of listeners with some sort of witch doctor/poet magnetism. During ‘I Will Follow You Into The Dark” even the drunkest of drunks kept quiet and hung on Ben Gibbard’s every word. When he sung, “in the blackest of roooooooms,” (you know what I’m talking about) all 9,000 people singing along (including myself) dropped to the most delicate of ‘roooooooms’ at the same time that was so soft I got goose bumps. Great show.

http://www.deathcabforcutie.com/

The Violent Femmes

One of the heritage acts at this year’s festival, the Violent Femmes pulled a huge crowd reaching far back to the stage thousands of feet across from them. A solid portion of the crowd was comprised of people who looked a little too wasted to be outside in 95∞ heat, but they went nuts for the show anyways. Since I was on a tight schedule to make it across the park for Death Cab I only stayed to hear them play ‘Country Death Song’ and ‘Blister In The Sun.’ It was one of the most unnerving moments of my life being in a crowd of thousands of people singing along to a song about a man losing his mind, shoving his young daughter into a bottomless pit, and then hanging himself. Whoa. When they sang ‘Blister’ people kept singing, but the tone changed and it was more about drunken bliss than insane murder/suicide.

http://www.vfemmes.com/

My Morning Jacket

I was really looking forward to this show since I missed their smaller club tour a few months back. They were arguably the LOUDest band at lolla. If volume is representative of talent, however, then MMJ is the greatest band of the new millennium. When Jim James wasn’t sending his violin bow of a voice soaring through the fields, MMJ kept an airtight connection between the band members; the Kentucky five piece created lavishly rich sounds using conventional instrumentation, managing to convert the large group of curious passers-by who were wondering who could be creating such a commanding sound.

http://www.mymorningjacket.com/

Lady Sovereign

The diminutive white, British, female rapper started her set 25 minutes late due to multiple instrument malfunctions from the heat and a delay from getting drunk/high with her band. After everything was fixed all 5’1” of Lady Sovereign came out ready to go. Her voiced popped and jumped like a hand waving and pointing all over the crowd, exciting even the most starched concertgoers to throw a hand in the air and feel Sov’s flow.

http://www.ladysovereign.com/flash.php

Stars

I got to their performance a little late after my volunteer shift, but I was still able to see them perform most of the songs I wanted to hear: ‘Ageless Beauty,’ ‘One More Night,’ and ‘Your Ex-Lover Is Dead.’ They got a large portion of the audience into their set, but a bunch of people wandered over who weren’t really enjoying the show. Despite the non-believers and intense summer heat Stars still managed to rock their trumpet, violin, and keys to bring some small club intimacy to the sweaty festival crowd.

http://www.arts-crafts.ca/stars/