Stephen Malkmus is the last of my five major American indie rock bands from the 1990s* I had yet to see perform live. I've seen Guided By Voices and Yo La Tengo twice, I saw Lou Barlow playing with both Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr and, most recently, I saw Dean Wareham in his Luna farewell tour, but I've never seen anyone from Pavement. And seeing Malkmus play with Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney (the fifth band, whom I've also seen twice) was an excellent bonus. His latest album with the Jicks (Real Emotional Trash) is about as close to indie jam band as anyone has gotten, but he pulls it off pretty well and shows something he never really showed when he was in Pavement: he can really play the guitar.
Malkmus doesn't really have any "hits" to speak of and he doesn't play old Pavement songs on tour, but fortunately he's talented and his solo career is even enough that he manages to entertain with any setlist he comes up with - and this was a Real Emotional Trash heavy set.
Unfortunately I was without my video camera AND my digital camera, so as usual my footage from the show comes from my lousy camera phone. Don't worry - I'll limit this to a few blobs...
*Note I didn't say "alternative" - to me, that's a whole 'nother beast. And OK, I forgot about Low. I should never make these kind of statements.
This is the best "band shot" I have. Note the set up -- Malkmus remarked that the unusually wide space between he and utility Jick Mike Clark was for a symbolic fifth Jick. Clearly it was done to show off Janet who is an entertaining performer to watch...hmm, but not here. Looks like maybe this was a guitar solo or something.
I liked this shot for some reason. I mean the quality is terrible, but if it were clear at all you'd see that the composition is pretty cool. It also gives you an idea of where we are sitting, which I was pretty pleased with. Occasionally, watching crowd reaction can be fun too...
This is Janet Weiss. She is a really, really, really good drummer. And this is what she might look like if she were drumming on a space station.
No comments:
Post a Comment