Though it cannot be denied that Bob Dylan is a living treasure and one of the most important and influential figures in the history of American song craft, the 68-year-old legend recently released a strong contender for the worst album of his storied career, "Christmas in the Heart."
It may have been a noble effort to raise money for charity. But the new disc of massacred holiday standards is nonetheless a miserable listening experience.
Thankfully, there wasn't a harsh, croaking rendition of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," an endless, torturous version of "Little Drummer Boy" or a weird threat-not-a promise take on "I'll Be Home for Christmas" in evidence Thursday night as the favorite son of Hibbing, Minn., played the first of a three-night stand at the Aragon Ballroom.
In fact, in his patently perverse, willfully noncommercial, change-it-up-every-night and "zag whenever they expect me to zig" style, Dylan completely ignored his new album. Instead, the man whose taped introduction branded him "the poet laureate of rock 'n' roll" gave us a typically atypical night, mixing a heavy sampling of songs from the last three studio albums before "Christmas in the Heart" with a handful of his most memorable anthems.
As usual, many of these songs were barely recognizable, as Dylan shuffled, rewrote, rearranged and just plain messed with them however the spirit of the moment struck him.
One notable failure: A particularly unsubtle and heavy-handed thrashing of "Just Like a Woman," part of a generally sluggish start to the two-hour show. (Dylan began promptly at 7:30 p.m., and there was no opening act.)
Among the standout high points: a revved-up "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum"; "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again," which was turned inside out and upside down; a rollicking and rambunctious "Highway 61 Revisited," and a tense and dramatic "Ain't Talkin'."
After a particularly inspired and reliably consistent stretch in the '90s, when his shows were marked by their furious guitar rave-ups and intense interaction with his crack band, Dylan's concerts have become much more uneven and sluggish in recent years. The star has spent much of his time onstage rigidly standing behind an electronic keyboard, reportedly because arthritis has made his guitar playing more difficult.
And the voice... oh, that voice. Even though of us who've applauded its harsh punk charms, forgiven its infamous limitations and championed it as a direct conduit to the songwriter's soul must admit that it's becoming ever harsher, more limited and sloppier, without an appreciable increase in soulfulness.
The current tour marks the return of Austin, TX, guitarist Charlie Sexton, one of Dylan's best ever sidemen, and a big reason why those '90s shows were so fiery. But the bandleader still spent much of Thursday night behind that dreaded synthesizer. When he did don a guitar, he hardly moved and barely acknowledged Sexton, second guitarist Stu Kimball and bassist Tony Garnier at his right side, much less drummer George Recile behind him.
Indeed, the only time Dylan seemed undiminished was when he blowing harp. His harmonica propelled "Ballad of a Thin Man," the last song before the encore, and the evening's climax.
Overall, this was a better night with Bob than the last few this critic has had, but it was far from the best.
The most hardcore fans will contend that any night with their hero is a privilege mere mortals should gratefully welcome without complaints. But I bet that even many of them are glad to have been spared his particularly unique reading of "Winter Wonderland."
Touring in support of its first two albums in the new millennium, the unadventurous U2-by-the-numbers "All That You Can't Leave Behind" (2000) and "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" (2004), Bono and the boys were in danger of becoming their generation's Rolling Stones--a rote if occasionally rousing arena act more devoted to selling tickets than to breaking new musical ground.
Released last February, "No Line on the Horizon," the Dublin band's 12th studio album, came as a welcome surprise: Though they didn't always succeed, the musicians at least took chances again, veering from that familiar U2 bombast to deliver their most creative disc since "Achtung Baby" (1991). Unfortunately, the new album also has been the slowest selling of their career, with U.S. sales yet to reach platinum status of a million sold--a fact that can be attributed to no one buying CDs anymore, or to fans being turned off by the group's experimentation.
Eighteen years ago, "Achtung Baby" inspired the Zoo TV Tour, a multi-media sensory assault that stands as the most inventive arena jaunt I've witnessed. The question looming over Soldier Field Saturday night as U2 launched the North American leg of its 360° Tour at the first of two concerts in Chicago was whether the band would uphold the creative spirit of the new album, matching or topping Zoo TV, or play it safe in an attempt to reconnect with conservative fans and please its new partner, giant national concert promoter Live Nation.
The answer, as is often the case with this band, was that it tried to do it all and please everyone. Though it avoided the most ambient and atmospheric of the new tracks crafted with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, the group did play a hefty chunk of "No Line on the Horizon," including the strong show opener "Breathe," the hypnotizing "Unknown Caller" and the soaring "Magnificent," which really was.
But in place of the disorienting buzz of Zoo TV, U2 gave us the empty spectacle of the multi-million-dollar stage fans have come to call "the Claw," a ludicrous, fog-belching, crab-like mega-structure that primarily succeeds in dwarfing the musicians onstage, recalling David Bowie's equally silly Glass Spider Tour and making recent Stones stages seem modest in comparison. (U2 really ought to talk to the Flaming Lips, who've been building a more impressive UFO stage out of supplies found at Home Depot at a cost of a few thousand bucks.)
Zoo TV wasn't the superior experience only because of technology, though. The early '90s were the only period in U2's three-decades-plus career when the band dared to laugh at itself, with Bono trading his messiah complex for irony and the Macphisto alter-ego, and the group suggesting that maybe, just maybe, its desire to save the world was a bit pompous and self-aggrandizing.
Alas, the crusaders were back Saturday, linking "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to Iranian pro-democracy demonstrators, turning "Walk On" into an act of solidarity with Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese politician under house arrest, and trotting out Archbishop Desmond Tutu on video to make a plea to end poverty and cure AIDS.
Um, Bono, old chum, many activists cite corporate globalization as the prime culprit responsible for some of the ills just cited. Care to explain how that jibes with you and the band wholeheartedly endorsing Live Nation's controversial mega-merger with Ticketmaster? On second thought, maybe there was some irony on Saturday.
In between the bounty of new tunes, the band trotted out the expected crowd-pleasers--"Beautiful Day," "Pride (In the Name of Love)," "Where the Streets Have No Name"--though some of these were truncated or delivered medley-style with awkward bits of covers ("Blackbird," "Stand By Me," "Oliver's Army"), with choppy and unsatisfying results.
As always, the deft rhythm section of drummer Larry Mullen Jr. and bassist Adam Clayton did their best to keep things moving, and the Edge was a deceptively simple one-man orchestra. Meanwhile, Bono posed and preened, emoted and yowled, flogging every millimeter of charisma he possesses. But as someone who's seen the group on nearly every tour since it first came to the U.S., I never found what I was looking for--that perfect mix of genuine passion and stadium-rock showmanship.
This band just may not be capable of it anymore--which means it may have become the Rolling Stones after all.
After the jump: Bono's Chicago shout-outs, four words about openers Snow Patrol, U2's set list and a point of comparison.
Though he certainly has weathered his share of trying times--epic battles with substance abuse and wars with record labels chief among them--at age 44, Trent Reznor arguably stands taller and prouder today than any of his alternative-era peers.
Twenty-one years after he founded Nine Inch Nails in Cleveland, Reznor not only has avoided creative paralysis or resorted to empty nostalgia, he's made some of the most inventive music of his career in recent years, and he's done it independently on the Net, working hard to create a new model for artists to gainfully distribute their recordings.
Now, like all too few rockers who've tired of the tour/record/tour/record grind, the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is going out at the top of his game with a final handful of relatively intimate shows on the "Wave Goodbye" tour, which pulled into the Aragon Ballroom for the first of two sold-out shows Friday night.
The current and final version of Nine Inch Nails--Reznor, guitarist Robin Finck, bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen and drummer Ilan Rubin--hit the stage hard at 8:40 p.m. with ferocious versions of "Wish" and "Last," both from the 1993 album "Broken."
"This isn't meant to last/This is for right now," Reznor sang in the latter. But as the two-hour, twenty-minute set made clear with a diverse and rewarding tour of his rich catalog, his music has indeed stood the test of time, and it's likely to endure for quite a few years to come, even if the band as we've come to know it no longer exists to deliver it live.
Throughout its history, some critics and fans focused on the group's theatrical stage shows: the assault of airport runway lights, the billowing clouds of fog and the star's angry eruptions that sent keyboards and guitars flying--all tricks present at its penultimate Chicago show.
Others lauded the band's distinctive sonics, and deservedly so, given Reznor's creativity in building a unique palette of digital and traditional rock instruments that drew on elements of punk, thrash-metal and industrial dance music--with an acknowledged debt to Chicago's Wax Trax label in the '80s--combining to create something new and hard to categorize, part organic and part alien avant garde.
But as Johnny Cash famously illustrated with his stripped-down acoustic cover of "Hurt," the real heart of Nine Inch Nails' appeal is Reznor's powerfully emotional songwriting. And he delivered an absurdly generous helping of it on Friday before closing his first Aragon show with that signature tune.
From the ultra-aggressive '90s modern-rock radio hits "March of the Pigs," "Closer" and "Head Like a Hole," to a sampling of the swirling, moody, atmospheric/progressive-rock tracks from "The Fragile" (1999) and "The Slip" (2008), to out-of-left-field rarities such as "Banged and Blown Through," a track from "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!," the 2007 album he released by his friend, rapper Saul Williams, Reznor touched on every period and style of the band's long evolution.
Late in the show, the group was joined for three songs by former Bauhaus singer and Goth-rock progenitor Peter Murphy. As a nod to a musical influence, his cameo was a nice gesture. But it also was unnecessary: Reznor didn't need the extra undead star power, and Nine Inch Nails had long since made an impressive and unforgettable farewell statement.
Opening the show was the Danish quartet Mew, which devalued its enigmatic shoegazer psychedelia by overstaying its welcome onstage and playing too long, which only emphasized its all-too-obvious debts to Iceland's Sigur Ros.
UPDATE: Several readers have emailed to ask about the support and what time Pearl Jam takes the stage. Bad Religion opens at 7:30, celebrating 30 years of punk; Pearl Jam went on Sunday night at 8:50 p.m.
UPDATE: Promoters Jam Productions have announced that additional tickets have been released for Pearl Jam's second Chicago show Monday night. Visit www.ticketmaster.com or call 1-800-745-3000. Bad Religion celebrates its 30th anniversary by opening at 7:30 p.m.
The biggest classic-rock fans of the alternative era, Evanston native Eddie Vedder and his band mates in Seattle's Pearl Jam have now been reliably rocking arenas long enough to claim that appellation themselves.
On Sept. 20, the band will release its ninth studio album, "Backspacer," and a radical stylistic departure is unlikely. The big difference is the band is going without a major label for the first time, instead using its Web site as well as iTunes, indie retailers and the Target chain.
Not since its start in 1990 and perhaps during the tense period a few years later when it waged war with Ticketmaster has the quintet had so much to prove. Perhaps as a result, it was an even more energized Pearl Jam than usual that pulled into the United Center on Sunday for the first of two sold-out nights.
"We've got a lot of emotion to get through tonight," Vedder said at the start. "So let's go through it together."
The group opened with a lovely version of the droning, folksy "Long Road" before tearing into a rollicking "Corduroy" and a ferocious "Why Go," nicely illustrating the contrasting poles of its sound.
"Why go home?" Vedder asked after the latter. " I am home, and it feels f---ing great to be here. Life experiences... even if you don't live in Chicago [anymore], Chicago will always live in you, and it's nice to come back and see so many people come out for this."
"This" was a two-hour jaunt through the Pearl Jam catalog, heavier on the hard-rockers than the ballads this time, but as usual mixing signature hits with deep album tracks and, oddly, only a brief taste of the new tunes---so much for crass commercialism.
The band did lose the plot a few times, notably during a pointlessly jammed-out "Even Flow," which found guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard trading tasty licks worthy of Chickenfoot as Vedder stood aside, smoking a cigarette and swigging from a bottle of wine. (Always the Romantic poet, our boy.)
For the most part, though, this was as focused and propulsive a set as I've seen Pearl Jam play in the last two decades. And like all true classic-rock pros, Vedder & Co. gave every indication that they're ready to keep rolling for 20 years more.
The best show by far of Lollapalooza 2009 really was part of Lollapalooza in name only: the after-show at Metro in the wee hours of Monday morning that marked the world premier of Them Crooked Vultures, the new supergroup featuring Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl and the legendary John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin.
Sources said the band turned down the chance to replace the Beastie Boys when they dropped off the Lollapalooza bill as Adam Yauch battled cancer; apparently, the new group preferred to make its debut in a much more intimate setting. (Instead of the potential crowd of 75,000 that would have seen the band in Grant Park, it played instead to 1,100 at Metro, mostly hardcore fans of Homme and Grohl lucky enough to get tickets after a fan club notification.)
Addressing the setting for this auspicious bow, Homme said, "We could have done this in L.A." As he pantomimed a well-endowed woman performing a rude sexual act, the crowd cheered wildly. "That's why we came here!" he added. "We came to Chicago because we wanted to play Metro!"
During an amazing 12-song, 80-minute set, Them Crooked Vultures went on to prove it is one the rarest things in rock: a supergroup that not only deserves that appellation, but which actually is greater than the sum of its storied parts.
With second guitarist and occasional keyboardist Alain Johannes, another veteran of Queens of the Stone Age, augmenting the star trio, the heart of the sound owed a lot to that band's brand of hypnotic but intense stoner rock, as well as to the more spacey and bluesy sounds of Homme's earlier group, Kyuss. Grohl also played for a time with the Queens, after their third album, "Songs for the Deaf" (2002). But as great as that group has been at various points, Them Crooked Vultures take the sound to a whole new level.
Simply put, Jones has enhanced any musical setting he's ever graced with his classy and virtuosic presence, whether it's been producing the Butthole Surfers, performing in a trio with art-rocker Diamanda Galas or serving as the solid anchor that grounded his larger-than-life band mates in Zep. And as obsessive rock fans who grew up worshipping Jimmy Page and John Bonham, Homme and Grohl seemed thrilled to be standing onstage with one of their heroes, and they pushed themselves to new heights to prove that they deserved the honor.
One of the hardest-hitting percussionists of his generation, Grohl seemed even more intense in this setting than he'd been during his stint with the Queens, hammering his snare with both hands to create a massive backbeat, firing off rapid fire single-stroke rolls that made his single bass drum sound like two, and playing long and complicated fills between hi-hat, snare and rack tom without ever losing the songs' propulsive drive.
Indeed, the complexity of the arrangements in tunes such as "Elephants" and "Caligulove" bordered at times on progressive rock--both of the old-school Yes variety, and the more modern Tool flavor. But the fact that the quartet never lost that forward momentum or the essential gritty blues growl made the music more of a full-body hard-rock experience than a cerebral study in musicianship, even when Jones sat at the keyboard to add a lovely coda to "Daffodils," or moved from a six-string bass, to eight strings, to 10 strings and finally to a mystery instrument that resembled a strap-on lap steel guitar with a built-in digital screen.
Homme handled most of the lead vocals, though Grohl, Jones and Johannes all traded off on backing parts. As for the thematic concerns of the material--well, it's never been easy to discern what Homme is singing about onstage, and we'll just have to wait to figure that out until the group releases its debut album, "Never Deserved the Future," on Oct. 23.
UPDATE: I incorrectly printed the release date and album title above based on a story from Rolling Stone that turns out to have been wrong. Says the band's publicist: "There is no set release date as yet. I don't think there's an album title either."
If the Metro show was any indication, the disc should be a stunner. The band presumably played the entire album--there was no encore--and only one song fell flat: "Interlude w/ Ludes," an alien lounge tune that found Jones on keytar and Homme putting down his ax to slink around the stage like an unholy combination of Dean Martin and Tom Jones.
Them Crooked Vultures set list: "Elephants," "New Fang," "Scumbag Blues," "Dead End Friends," "Bandoliers," "Mind Eraser (No Chaser)," "Gunman," "Daffodils," "Interlude w/ Ludes," "Caligulove," "Warsaw," "Nobody Loves Me."
Where lesser mortals would be daunted at the task of driving one mighty hellhound-on-your-trail rock band, Jack White now propels three.
There are the White Stripes, of course, which White followed several years into their platinum-selling career with his first side project, the Raconteurs. But as he proved Tuesday night when his newest busman's holiday the Dead Weather made its Chicago debut at the Vic Theatre, his desire to howl at the moon, literally and metaphorically, remains undiminished, as does the potency he brings to the proceedings.
Make no mistake: While the Dead Weather was clearly a tight-knit collaboration with Alison Mosshart of the Kills on vocals, Jack Lawrence of the Raconteurs on bass and Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age on keyboards and guitar, it was White's love for and knowledge of the
dirtiest, sexiest, most dangerous kind of grunge-infected blues that informed every note the new group played.
White spent almost the entire set behind the drums, the instrument he played in the first group that won him national attention, Goober and the Peas, and which he attacks much like his ex-wife Meg: simply but powerfully. He only claimed the spotlight and the lead vocal role a few
times, most notably on a killer cover of "You Just Can't Win" by Van Morrison's first band, Them, and the nonsensical but effective original "I Cut Like a Buffalo" from the Dead Weather's debut album, "Horehound."
White also grabbed the guitar during a haunting duet with Mosshart on "Will There Be Enough Water?," which ended the set proper before a well-deserved encore.
Otherwise, center stage solely belonged to Mosshart, who possessed it as a sexy/scary woman on the verge of an unstoppable libidinous rampage or violent bloody murder--it was hard to tell which. She stood atop or draped herself over the monitors, she pranced and stalked, and she dropped to her knees, howling all the while through standout tracks such as "60 Feet
Tall," "Hang You from the Heavens" and "So Far From Your Weapon."
Even before the Raconteurs' disappointing second album, that group felt more like a detour than a destination. Not so the Dead Weather, which, if it continues to evolve and White doesn't lose interest, could well eclipse the White Stripes.
In a rare example of an opening band being every bit as awesome as the headliner, the New Jersey trio Screaming Females provided ample evidence that it was more than ready for the sudden leap it recently made from tiny, underground all-ages clubs to sold-out theaters as the Dead Weather's hand-picked support.
As massive a sonic presence on guitar and vocals as she is a physically diminutive presence, Marissa Paternoster brought to mind Bob Mould at his scariest with a touch of heavy-metal shredder thrown in, while bassist Mike Rickenbacker and drummer Jarret Dougherty completed the Husker Du-like assault with tunes from their recent third album, the aptly titled "Power
Move."
Drum-guitar duo Wavves started about 25 minutes late, which made the truncated set sound more frenzied than the music itself. Guitarist-singer Nathan Williams prefers the reverb on his vocals caked deep inside a well of sound, resulting in a mix that made him sound like he was shouting, not from Ashland Ave., the location of the stage, but at least as far away as Western, or maybe even farther.
His obscured singing further muddied the band's ghostly punk sound early in the set. In late May the San Diego band ignited blog chatter when Williams delivered an incoherent performance at a festival in Barcelona that ended when drummer Ryan Ulsh dumped a beer on his head.
On Saturday, Williams showed no sign he needed a similar wake-up call. Wearing a Bulls cap, he loosened up mid-way through, giving his rudimentary guitar riffing more of a bounce. Injecting blasts of intermittent noise, he ended his set with Ulsh playing fuzzy pop songs that sounded sunnier with Williams' vocals floating through its middle.
Lindstrom, the one-word surname of Hans-Peter Lindstrom from Norway, played a perfunctory DJ set that turned half the grass field before his stage into a daytime rave. His laptop set allowed for little room to breathe; instead the music flowed uninterrupted, creating disco-studded waves that paused only for rhythmic breaks that broke through unexpectedly and in a big way.
Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino did not add much to synth-pop, by now, a precious genre that has run its course. Billed as Matt and Kim, they broke their drums and keyboards to the most elemental level: big beat party music. "This is the (expletive) party stage!" yelled Schifino, who later got low to pay tribute to the bootylicious dance maneuverings of Beyonce.
But despite the mini-songs, the duo showed an allegiance to arena rock through a cover of "The Final Countdown," a 1986 hit by Swedish glam-rockers Europe. Johnson, who just admitted they were playing "to the biggest crowd they every played in front of," got the crowd to clap along in what became a major peak for a band mostly capable of small wonders.
There is no single frontman in The Black Lips -- they all are. The Atlanta band, which plays a particularly sloppy brand of early British Invasion rock, finds unity in gang vocals, which gives the songs their slightly jeering edge. Unlike most bands, the Black Lips actually look, sound and interact like a group of woozy street thugs, an asset to the music, which sounded hanging on its last hinge.
That gave the band's set a sense of glee; songs like "Cold Hands" showed they knew how to set it to melodies. "So we got a 7.4, I think," said guitarist Ben Eberbaugh, mocking the rating system of the website that hosted the festival, but helping to headline it anyway.
The Black Lips onstage at Pitchfork; Sun-Times photos by Oscar Lopez.
Making the scene at Pitchfork 2009; Sun-Times photo by Oscar Lopez.
The second day of Pitchfork 2009 continued the slow-to-somnambulant vibe of much of Day I. First up on the main stages in Union Park: Cymbals Eat Guitars and Plants and Animals, two groups whose live performances failed to captivate in the larger-than-life festival setting, and which seemed to be struggling to find unique identities.
A much-buzzed quartet from New York, Cymbals Eat Guitars could well have been Minneapolis' Tapes 'n Tapes playing the same stage two years ago and failing to distinguish themselves as anything more than vaguely New Wave-sounding generic indie rock, though like Built to Spill the night before, the musicians did at least try to play to the wide open spaces with dramatic use of contrasting loud/soft dynamics.
Slightly less twee on stage than on album, Montreal's Plants and Animals nonetheless seemed confused about whether they wanted to emulate the Talking Heads circa "Remain in Light," as they'd do for one song, or vintage '70s Krautrock with a driving motorik beat, as they'd do for the next. Then, just to confuse things even more, they'd throw in a bit of heavy-metal posturing.
F---d Up singer Pink Eyes struts his stuff; photo courtesy of Andrew Gill, WBEZ.
Things only really got started at 2:30 in the afternoon when Toronto-based art-punk provocateurs F---ed Up took the Aluminum Stage, and bald, bearded, beer-bellied singer Pink Eyes (a.k.a. Damian Abraham) proved himself in the same league as the Jesus Lizard's David Yow, spending almost the entire set in the field with the fans, standing atop the crowd barrier or tearing apart any beach ball tossed his way with his teeth.
In your face with a three-guitar attack and relentlessly propulsive rhythms, the group's wall of sound is nevertheless intensely melodic, and many in the crowd sang along throughout its set. And while some critics have raised alarms about the cryptic politics of some of the band's lyrics, the live show underscores that it's all just about energy, and Pink Eyes' stage presence is just a celebration of cutting loose.
If the musicians really believed in fascism, they could never abide anyone having so much fun.
Finding themselves in the same difficult spot that Built to Spill was in after the Jesus Lizard, the Brooklyn quartet the Pains of Being Pure at Heart acquitted themselves a little better, entrancing the crowd rather than trying to pummel it, and letting the lush waves of shoegazer guitar and wispy pop harmones float over the park like a fluffy cloud.
After the group's pleasant breather of a set, I headed over to the smaller Balance Stage and caught the last half of Bower Birds, one of the several folk-rock revivalist bands on the bill this year. Way too mannered on record, the group was much more impressive live, thanks to the magnetic presence of front woman Beth Tacular, and the musicians' deft juggling of upright bass, accordion, violin and gorgeous harmony vocals. The large crowd responded by listening with an almost reverent silence.
Things quickly got a lot looser and much more energetic with the next band, Ponytail, which had been one of my picks for the best of the fest (thanks to the strength of its 2008 album "Ice Cream Spiritual") and which turned out to be even better than I'd hoped.
Molly Siegal and Ponytail speak in tongues at Pitchfork; photo courtesy of Andrew Gill, WBEZ.
Front woman Molly Siegal is a unique presence, dressed for this occasion in pink jeans and a phosphorescent green Michael Jackson T-shirt, looking like she was having epileptic seizures as she pogoed non-stop and let her eyes roll to the back of her head and singing in mostly insensible, speaking-in-tongues yelps, bleats and squeals. Think of Yoko Ono and Bjork dueting on the part of the B-52's "Rock Lobster" where they make the sounds of the stingray and the narwhal, and you'll still only be about half way there.
Though Siegal demands the spotlight, guitarists Ken Seeno and Dustin Wong and drummer Jeremy Hyman create a melodic and undeniable backdrop for her alien vocals, intertwining repetitive riffs and decorating the rhythms with all manner of cool synthesized or effected noises.
After Ponytail, it was back to the main stages for Yeasayer, a consistently hypnotic and magical live act that has long since proven it's mastery of the festival setting with it genre-defying mix of electronic and acoustic rhythms, folk-rock harmonies, free-form jazz excursions, shoegazer guitars and world percussion.
Doom takes the stage at Pitchfork; Sun-Times photo by Oscar Lopez.
If Doom (arty hip-hopper Daniel Dumile) specializes in creating elaborate mythical worlds in the studio, the only gimmick during his Pitchfork set was his trademark super villain mask. Otherwise, his set was a straightforward, hard-grooving assault of steady beats, rapid-fire rhymes and inventive backing tracks.
Finally, Day II came to an end on the main stages in mellow fashion once again as Beirut and the National wrapped things up.
Beirut on the Connector Stage at Pitchfork; Sun-Times photo by Oscar Lopez.
The horns that decorated much of New Mexico musician Zach Condon's music with Beirut were lovely, but not lovely enough to make up for his annoying ukulele, and the sometimes pointlessly eclectic arrangements and overall lazy mid-tempo groove weren't what this listener needed to stay motivated as the end of such a long day of music drew near.
The Ohio to New York transplants in the Americana-oriented group the National started out just as slowly, but rumbling baritone vocalist Matt Berninger and his band mates picked up steam as the set went on, and the group's mix of alternative country and chamber pop was beautiful and enchanting at times.
Nevertheless, at the end of the day, it was Ponytail and the National that powered me on the trip home, and which I'll remember along with the Jesus Lizard as the high points of everything I've seen in Union Park this year or any other.
Tortoise at Pitchfork; Sun-Times photo by Oscar Lopez.
Having survived a brief picket by union stagehands earlier in the week, and with the promoters hoping that the ominous, low-lying gray clouds wouldn't open up, the fifth annual Pitchfork Music Festival got underway in the West Side's Union Park late Friday afternoon in a lulling, low-key fashion with a set by Chicago's instrumental navel-gazers Tortoise.
Never a very inspiring act in concert, the instrument-hopping quintet didn't gain any excitement from partaking in day one's "Write the Night" concept, which involved concertgoers voting online in advance for the songs they'd most like to hear. Since so many of the band's sleepy grooves and repetitive minimalist melodies are so similar, it all sounded like one long, boring song anyway, this part with mallets, that with Moog synthesizer, this part with a bit of jazzy guitar from Jeff Parker.
Quipped one festival-goer: "I'm just going to consider this like that music they use to test the P.A."
The only drama in Tortoise's set came from drummer John Herndon's introductory dedication of the performance to local poet Thax Douglas, a ubiquitous presence reading his short, music-inspired poems at local rock clubs and theaters, and "a dear friend of ours who died this morning."
The problem with this moving sentiment is that no reliable news organizations have been able to confirm Douglas' alleged death at the time of this posting, and it appears to have been debunked as an Internet hoax.
Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo; Sun-Times photo by Oscar Lopez.
Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo; Sun-Times photo by Oscar Lopez.
Pitchfork 2009's second act, long-running Hoboken, N.J.-based guitar-rockers Yo La Tengo, also started out sleepily, leaning toward more trance-inducing Krautrock-style drones early in the set.
The flaws in the "Write the Night" concept quickly became apparent: Since the results weren't posted in advance, you really couldn't tell if the band was fulfilling fans' requests or not. Also, if the broad base of fans doesn't have a deep knowledge of the band's catalog and history, instead of challenging it to perform some rarely heard nuggets, they probably just asked for the best-known songs, many of which they'd likely have heard anyway.
Whatever the results of the balloting, guitarist-vocalist Ira Kaplan, drummer-vocalist Georgia Hubley and bassist-vocalist James McNew kicked into gear about 20 minutes into their set with a ferocious noise-guitar blowout, and from that point on, they proceeded to alternate some of their most straightforward and winning pop tunes with chaotic Velvet Underground-style noise rock.
Jesus Lizard singer David Yow goes into the crowd (briefly) and stares lovingly into the eyes of stage manager and always amiable scenester Howard Greynolds, charged with the unenviable task of fishing him out ; Sun-Times photo by Oscar Lopez.
By far the highlight of Day I--and such a powerful presence that it seemed pointless for any other band to even try to compete--the Jesus Lizard took the stage in Chicago once again, a decade after the legendary noise-rock quartet disbanded.
Through the '90s, singer David Yow earned a place on a short list that includes Iggy Pop and the late Lux Interior of the Cramps, similar forces of nature who courted chaos whenever they picked up a microphone.
As he prepares to celebrate his 49th birthday next month, Yow may be mellowing some: Unlike many shows in the past, where he seemed to spend most of his time atop the up-stretched arms of the crowd, Yow only dived in the seething mass of humanity a few times. He kept his clothes on--there was no reprise of the infamous "Tight and Shiny" routine of old--and he didn't pop any of his limbs out of joint.
He could have been intimidated by the distance between the stage and the crowd barriers. And it's also possible that the festival setting just didn't inspire the same lunacy that used to grip him at Metro or the Vic Theatre back in the day. But it really didn't matter.
The relative absence of outrageous stage antics allowed fans to focus on the fact that, while Yow is by no means a great singer in any traditional sense of the word, he is a unique and unforgettable one, with a voice one alt-era critic described as a hostage screaming through the duct tape over his mouth, and another said evoked a possessed preacher speaking in tongues.
Meanwhile, bassist David Wm. Sims and drummer Mac McNeilly showed they hadn't lost a beat, remaining one of the best rhythm sections of their generation, with an undeniable James Brown swing under their ferocious punk-rock-meets-John Bonham bombast. And cool as ever through it all, Duane Denison churned out spare but indelible riffs without ever breaking a sweat--that is, until he allowed himself the indulgence of rolling on the floor amid sweeping waves of feedback during the last song of the set (followed shortly thereafter by a two-song encore, a rarity at Pitchfork, but well-deserved).
Yow and Jesus Lizard drummer Mac McNeilly; Sun-Times photo by Oscar Lopez.
Duane Denison; Sun-Times photo by Oscar Lopez.
Even if you weren't a big fan of Built to Spill--and I was never converted by their postmodern updates of classic Neil Young and Crazy Horse guitar jams--you had to pity bandleader, guitarist, vocalist and Idaho native Doug Martsch for having the unenviable task of trying to follow the Jesus Lizard, headlining over that band in its home town.
Martsch and his bandmates tried their best, making impressive use of dramatic dynamics shifts with quiet interludes exploding into six-string rave-ups. But it was sort of like following a gourmet meal with a Twinkie for desert: It might have been fine as a snack at a different time, but after what had preceded it, there simply was no point.
Built to Spill; Sun-Times photo by Oscar Lopez. More photos from Day I after the jump.
Though its members may present themselves as typical snotty slackers, Green Day can't be faulted for lack of ambition.
Not only has the long-running Bay Area pop-punk trio delivered two sprawling concept albums with its last two releases, but it's seen both hit No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart, silencing skeptics who thought its 1994 smash "Dookie" was a fluke.
Meanwhile, 37-year-old Billie Joe Armstrong and his band mates have long since traded the tiny all-ages dives of their early years for the biggest arenas. And they're almost convincing enough to pull it off.
Almost, but not quite: There's just no denying that punk rock was never intended to be heard in an enormodome. You need to feel the bass drum in your gut, the guitars should make your ears ring and you ought to see the singer's sneer, if not dodge his spit.
And no matter how much a band is trying to remain true to its roots, something about playing an arena brings out the arena-rock cliches.
When Green Day performed at the United Center Monday, those came in the form of cheesy pyrotechnics and snippets of corny covers ranging from Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" to the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There," with a break for "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" somewhere in the middle.
All of this tomfoolery was especially annoying since the group has such a deep and rich catalog, and it only played some two dozen songs during a more than two-hour set.
The band came out strong with a salvo of some of the most ferocious tunes from the recent "21st Century Breakdown," mostly eschewing the melodramatic ballads. Yet while I'm not a big fan of this rock opera about aimless youth in search of a cause--I greatly prefer the more directly political "American Idiot" (2004)--it was still disappointing that the band didn't try to make the case for the entire "Quadrophenia"-like epic.
In the end, when the group was hitting full-throttle--either on new material such as "Know Your Enemy" and "The Static Age" or on old favorites like "Longview" and "Basket Case"--you could almost believe it wasn't just show business.
Then, all too soon, the sax player (one of three sidemen) would come out dressed like Michael Jackson, Armstrong would shout "Chicago!" for the 40th time or the band would lapse into another cover (which have been pretty much the same every night of the tour). And you'd have to admit it was all about as sincere and spontaneous as Neil Diamond in Vegas, though not as
much fun.
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