tUnE-yArDs, Vic Theatre, Chicago, Illinois

We arrived towards the beginning of the opening act and slid down to the back right corner of the front section. I counted only 8 people between myself and the stage. I was told that the tUnE-yArDs performance that evening wasn’t quite sold out but very close to it. When we arrived it was crowded but comfortable. However, by the time tUnE-yArDs took the stage, our section was packed –  too crowded for comfort. Though cramped, we stayed in our spot; trying to find a more comfortable one further back we mean we would be very far back.

tUnE-yArDs, a music project of the singer, song-writer, and multi-instrumentalist Merrill Garbus, was another instance of a live performance for which I didn’t know what to expect. While the official band consists of just her and her musical partner, Nate Brenner, the music uses lots of loops and layered sounds. Even though the tUnE-yArDs are a vehicle for her music, her albums involve various session musicians.

To begin the show, Merrill took the stage with her two female back up vocalists, Abigail Nessen-Bengson  and Jo Lampert, to kick off the set with the a capella song, “Rocking Chair.” Afterwards, another pair of musicians joined her including Nate Brenner on bass, percussion, and synthesizer and Dani Markham on percussion and vocals. Merrill had some minor percussion in front of her – a tom-tom, snare, and cymbal – a synthesizer, and lots of pedals for loops. She wasn’t wearing shoes so she could better manipulate the pedals. The two back-up singers (now also dancers) moved a few feet back for the remainder of the show. The stage set up was fairly minimal; there weren’t any lighting effects. Merrill and the back-up singers did do a few choreographed dance moves.

The setlist included only songs from here two most recent of her three albums, w h o k i l l (2011) and Nikki Nack (2014). Merrill is incredibly talented, with a beautiful Afro-Caribbean style voice, even though she’s white. It was also impressive to watch how much she was doing on stage in unison – creating and layering loops, playing instruments, and singing lead vocals.

Setlist:
Rocking Chair
Sink-O
Real Thing
Wait for a Minute
Gangsta
Es-So
Powa
Time of Dark
Stop That Man
Killa
Water Fountain
Bizness
Encore:
Doorstep
Hey Life

BΔSTILLE, Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, Illinois

The Aragon Ballroom is a historic venue on the north side of the city, completed in 1926.It was designed in an elaborate Moorish architectural style, with the interior resembling a Spanish village, particularly the balconies. The interior ceiling is even painted to resemble the view of a starry sky from the village courtyard, complete with twinkling lights. The main stage consist of a singular large general admission room with just a few balcony seating areas up top. With a significantly elevated stage, the views from anywhere in the room are quite good. Even though the show was sold out, there was plenty of room. With a capacity of 4,500, it is perhaps the nicest venue of its size I have visited.

Bastille are an English rock band formed in London several years ago and consisting of Dan Smith (lead vocals, keyboards, percussion), Kyle Simmons (keyboards, percussion, bass, backing vocals, synthesizers), Will Farquarson (bass, keyboards, guitar, backing vocals), and Chris Wood (percussion, backing vocals). The band derives its name from Bastille Day – an event celebrated on Smith's birthday, July 14th. So just to be clear – English band, named for a French holiday, playing music in an America venue decorated to look as if it was designed by African conquerors of Spain.

Lead singer Dan Smith did all the speaking for the band but was a bit difficult to understand much of the time. Often, I felt like I was only getting every third word. As they only have one album, Bad Blood (2013), released to date, most if not all the songs were pulled from it. This included bookending the show with two of their biggest hits, “Things We Lose in the Fire” and “Pompeii.” There were a few covers as well, or at least one, “No Angels,” a mixture of the TLC song “No Scrubs” and The xx song, “Angels.” It sounded a bit awkward to me; it just didn’t really work. There were a few other songs that didn’t seem to work so well; these are the difficulties of being a new band playing large venues. People expect a 75 minute show, so you include a few songs that would be cut out if you had more to pull from. The seemingly mostly female crowd was excited but fairly tame. The stage show was well done. It included a large triangle shape on stage with the band. A few fans made corresponding triangle shapes with their fingers. I was a bit confused; I thought that was Alt-J’s signature. I guess Bastille do also use a triangle in their stylized signature.

Setlist:
Things We Lost in the Fire
Weight of Living, Pt. II
Laura Palmer
Laughter Lines
Bad Blood
Blame
Overjoyed
Poet
These Streets
Skulls
The Silence
Oblivion
No Angels
Icarus
The Draw
Flaws
Get Home
Of the Night
Pompeii

Owl John, Bottom Lounge, Chicago, Illinois

Owl John is the assumed moniker of Scott Hutchison, founding member, lead singer, and primary songwriter of the Scottish indie rock band Frightened Rabbit. While Hutchison is the only official member of Owl John, his debut eponymous album under that name includes full instrumentation with participation of several session musicians. So just like with Damien Rice, I didn’t know quite who to expect would be on stage. As with Damien Rice, it was just Hutchison on stage with a guitar. His Chicago show was only one of three shows he would be doing in the US as Owl John while on his way from a European tour to Los Angeles, a city he hates but now calls home after falling for a girl and following her there.

The Bottom Lounge is quite small with standing room for probably only a couple hundred people. A single open space makes every spot in the room a good one. The show, advertised as starting at 8pm, didn’t actually start till 9pm, which was a bit annoying. That meant that after the opening act, Hutchison didn’t take the stage until 10pm. Fortunately, the bar outside the stage provided a large, nice area to kill time.

Upon taking the stage with his guitar, Hutchison quickly proved himself to be a superb entertainer. He was absolutely hilarious with a smartass quip or funny story about everything. Sometimes it was tales of home or touring that he no doubt told a thousand times. Other times, he would just riff on things that audience members yelled out.  In all seriousness, the level of laughter from the audience would be appropriate for a comedy club, not the indie folk set of an artist often known for writing depressing lyrics. Of course, everything was at least 50% funnier and more charming because of his Scottish brogue. Also, I at first forgot that his name was Scott. So when recounting stories in which people were speaking to him, I thought he was implying that they were referring to him by his nationality, as if someone would say to me, “Hey American.” After the concert, Lindsey and I tried to remember as many of his stories and as much of his banter as we could, as follows:

• Can we get the reverb turned up?...I sound like God up here.” [It was then turned up way too high for his next song, but then dialed back a bit]
• “I once played a show with my fly down. Luckily some folks in the front slipped me a note. Now, mind you, it was a note like concrete poetry. They took what should have been one line and turned it into a poem. So they slip this paper on the stage and I'm like, ‘O, a number, that never happens.’ Or if it does, it's 'Scot, call me – Dave' and I'm like ‘Thanks, Dave, but I'll only be calling if I need some plumbing work done.’ So I start reading this note. The first line is just 'Scot' and I'm like, ‘well, that's me, okay, keep reading.’ 'Your fly,' and then I'm like, ‘well, thanks! no one's ever said that to me before.’ But then I notice there's no apostrophe, so I keep reading ‘... is down.’ Well, fuck. So now before the show, I was just in the toilet and before I came out, I double, triple checked everything... [someone yelled, ‘Prove it’]…‘Prove it?! How am I supposed to do that?’… [more inappropriate yelling]…‘People, it’s a Wednesday.’”
• "Yeah, a lot of my songs are depressing. My fans probably worry I’m a complete mess all the time. This one time, we were about to start making a record, and I had just been through a break up. Someone told the manager at the label we were with, and he was so excited, all: ‘Yes, the record is going to be fantastic.’ It was, but we ended up leaving that label, so it didn't work out for him.”“So I moved to LA because I fell in love… [Everyone in audience exclaims ‘awww.’]… Don't worry, I'm still in love. That's all great, but LA is shit. You live there for three days and hate yourself. You all are very lucky you live here. Chicago’s a great city…[Girl in the audience yells out, ‘there are red light cameras here too’]….You have what? Oh, you mean they snap you when you run the lights? Well, is that really so terrible? Is it really infringing on your rights? You can't just hop in your car and run red lights for fun....That lady's never coming to another Frightened Rabbit show.
• “[Mentions something about guys who wear backwards hats] I was playing this one show in Montreal and there were these two guys with backwards hats in the front row screaming the whole show for ‘The Twist.’ I mean, they were going crazy for it. Quite honestly, it was a pleasure to not play it for them. A few of my friends that were in the audience that night and standing by these guys told me after the show that they overheard the guys in backwards hats saying they love the song so much because it was what they were listening to when they crashed their boat. Crashed their boat? Really? Anyone else here crash their boat to a Frightened Rabbit song?
• [Someone shouts after hearing the first chord of a song, recognizing it was the start of a song they wanted to hear] “Oh, is that what you wanted to hear? One chord? A nice F/G? Because I can just do that for the next hour. F/G, F/G... You know when I was a kid, maybe five years old, they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. I picked Eric Clapton. You know his Unplugged show, at the start of every song there's this big applause…every song. And I thought 'man, wouldn't that be great? That's what I want.' Now it happens for me and I realize that it’s really fuckin annoying.”

While the stories and banter made the evening particularly memorable, I loved the music as well. He played only a three Owl John songs, opting for a setlist heavy on Frightened Rabbit including a song from Sing the Greys (2007), six from The Midnight Organ Fight (2008), a pair from The Winter of Mixed Drinks (2010), and four from Pedestrian Verse (2013). After playing “The Modern Leper,” his first Frightened Rabbit song of the evening, he explained “Ah, you didn’t think I was going to play all new stuff. You think I’m fuckin stupid?” He also claimed, “So I don’t have a setlist, I play whatever you yell out basically. However, after lots of yelling for songs, he admitted, “Ok, one of you yelled the one I wanted to play; the whole thing is kind of a fallacy.” However, not every request was accepted. When someone yelled out “Freebird!,” he quipped, “Did that really just happen?” Someone else responded, "We were all thinking it. “He replied “No, we all were not. I believe you are alone in that, and after this, will be alone for a very long time.” Someone else kept yelling out for the song, “'Keep Yourself Warm.” He explained, “No, I'm not going to play that song now. I play that song and everyone leaves to go cut their wrists. I know you're not all familiar with putting together a setlist, but it's all about pace.” “Keep Yourself Warm” didn’t make it into the setlist that evening. Perhaps his single best comment of the night was when he asked, “How about a request from the people over there who won’t shut the fuck up? Maybe if I play the one song you really want to hear, you'll shut up and then leave and go to some douche bar.”

I had always casually enjoyed Frightened Rabbit, but had listened to them more in depth in anticipation of the show. Hearing it live, even striped down versions, made me appreciate it even more. It also made me want to see a full Frightened Rabbit show immediately. When I got home, I even turned on some more of their music, which is very uncharacteristic of me.

Setlist:

Hate Music

The Modern Leper [Frightened Rabbit song]

State Hospital [Frightened Rabbit song]

Los Angeles, Be Kind

The Oil Slick [Frightened Rabbit song]

Backyard Skulls [Frightened Rabbit song]

The Woodpile [Frightened Rabbit song]

Nothing Like You [Frightened Rabbit song]

Red Hand

Old Old Fashioned [Frightened Rabbit song]

My Backwards Walk [Frightened Rabbit song]

Square 9 [Frightened Rabbit song]

The Twist [Frightened Rabbit song]

The Loneliness and the Scream [Frightened Rabbit song]

Encore:

Floating in the Froth [Frightened Rabbit song]

Poke [Frightened Rabbit song]

Damien Rice, Athenaeum Theatre, Chicago, Illinois

Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice had been quiet for the last eight years. He had not released new material since 2006, and even that was only at the urging of his record label. And while he would do a one off performance in Ireland or the UK, he had not completed a full tour since his last album. So it came as quite a surprise that without much warning, he announced the upcoming release of a new album and accompanying tour which would include a handful of dates in North America.

His venue of choice, the Athenaeum Theatre, is quite small, seating less than a thousand people. While that means that even seats in the back are probably still good, tickets sold out immediately. I, however, was resolved to go, realizing that it could be many more years before he returned to a town in which I lived, if he returned at all. So I went on Craigslist and bought a ticket for four times face value, I believe the highest mark-up that I’ve ever paid for a ticket. It did however provide me with an amazing seat, in the second row of one of the middle sections on the main floor. All the tickets in that section were only available through the fan club presale, so everyone near me was a huge fan – either a member of the fan club or willing to pay a high premium for a ticket. Many drove quite a ways. The guy I bought my ticket from, who was sitting reasonably close to me at the show, drove from Bloomington, Indiana. My seat had a great view of the stage and perfect speaker placement. It was primed to be a wonderful experience.

There was no opener, so Damien took the stage about 7:45. He had a fair amount of equipment on stage with him including a piano. I wasn't sure whether to expect just him on stage or whether there would be any type of band with him. He came on stage and sat down on a stool with his guitar. There was just a single dim light on him, so the stage was very dark. While not showy it was an interesting choice for a performance and fitting for him. I now also better understood why he was playing such a small venue.

He opened with "I Don't Want to Change You" from his new album. After completing it, he told us that he had an ear infection, so it was strange to play music without being able to hear himself. To me, he still sounded great. His voice was still beautiful. Fortunately, his illness didn’t seem to be impacting his vocal chords. However, he was definitely having a bit of trouble on the guitar. However, it sounded fine once he got into the groove of a song. Besides, he’s known for his lyrics and voice, not his technical proficiency on a guitar. He played a couple more songs but frequently commented that he was having trouble. His concerns were met with lots of encouraging shouts from the audience, but perhaps he couldn't hear them. After playing “Volcano,” the song on which he normally closes, he stood up, apologized to everyone but stated that he couldn't continue. Then he left the stage, after playing only five complete songs.

I, along with every other person in the venue, was shocked. For a moment, I just sat there in disbelief. This can’t be happening. Maybe he would come back out? Unfortunately, the only person to return was a theater manager, telling us to go home and that Damien Rice and theatre would figure out how to move forward, be it rescheduling or refunds. It was very disappointing. A girl sitting near me, who had driven from Eastern Indiana, was in tears. I tried to convince her, as well as myself, that five songs were better than nothing. A little group of us gathered ourselves together and headed to Barrelhouse Flats, where we convinced the bar to play some Damien Rice. We had some drinks and made the best of it. The following morning, it was posted on his website that the show would be rescheduled. I suspect it will be in mid- November, as he’ll be returning to North America for a show in New York and Montreal. I just hope that I can make it.

Setlist:
I Don't Want To Change You
Accidental Babies
Then Go [Incomplete]
Delicate
The Greatest Bastard
Volcano
[Show ended early due to illness]

Robert Plant, Riviera Theatre, Chicago, Illinois

A Thursday night at the Riviera Theatre was another opportunity for me to cross a music legend off my bucket list. This time, it would be former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant. We arrived at the venue before the opening act took the stage, securing a spot towards the back of the lowest section. By the time Robert Plant started, this section was extremely crowded. It’s a bit of an annoying aspect of the Riviera. Unlike some other venues, the views and sound from the back of the theatre are vastly inferior to those closest to the stage. Therefore, everyone does whatever they can to get as close as possible. Among the crowd, we noticed many older people in attendance, uncommon for a general admission club show. I was a bit surprised that Robert Plant was playing the Riviera at all. He could have easily played a larger, seated venue like the Chicago Theater. We also noticed that there were many parent/child couples around us.

Robert Plant plays accompanied by his afro-psychedelic-blues band, the Sensational Shape Shifters, which he put together about two years ago. Plant and his new band are fresh off the release of their first collective album, lullaby and...The Ceaseless Roar (2014). The band includes five musicians in addition to Plant, consisting of members of another of his former bands, the Strange Sensation. The band played various stringed and percussion instruments, including a ritti player, the one string African fiddle I recently noticed on stage with Vieux Farka Touré at the Chicago World Music Festival last month. Plant himself didn't play an instrument but gave his band plenty of space to jam and show of their own talents. The band’s sound has a distinctly African influence but also incorporates the blend of rock, folk, and blues that Plant has been cultivating over the previous decade.

The evening’s setlist included about half Led Zeppelin songs and half Plant’s solo songs, plus a few covers. Naturally, the audience was most excited when he played Zeppelin. While getting to hear live versions of classic Zeppelin songs was the highlight, I also enjoyed selections from the new album, especially his closing on “Little Maggie,” a drastic rearrangement of a Stanley Brothers bluegrass song.

Setlist:
No Quarter [Led Zeppelin song]
Poor Howard
Ramble On [Led Zeppelin song]
Turn It Up
Arbaden (Maggie's Babby)
Rainbow
Going to California [Led Zeppelin song]
A Stolen Kiss
What Is and What Should Never Be [Led Zeppelin song]
How Many More Years [Howlin’ Wolf cover]
Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You [Joan Baez cover]
Fixin' to Die [Bukka White cover]
I Just Want to Make Love to You / Whole Lotta Love / Who Do You Love
Encore:
Nobody's Fault but Mine [Blind Willie Johnson cover]
Little Maggie