Month: August 2010

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Wanda Jackson at FitzGerald’s

She’s known as the Queen of Rockabilly, and she deserves the title. Wanda Jackson is one of the pioneers. She played with Elvis. She was even his girlfriend for a while. She may not have been as famous as the other folks (mostly guys) who blended together country, blues and folk to create the stuff known as rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly, but her songs — like “Mean Mean Man” — still sound great all these years later. And Ms. Jackson still sounds pretty great, too.

She’s in her 70s, but she’s still touring, and she made a stop Friday night at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jackson in 2007 by phone, but this was the first time I’d ever seen her perform in concert. She was sassy, funny and spirited throughout a good long set, playing all of her oldies plus a couple of songs she just recorded for a seven-inch single with Jack White producing: Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” and Johnny Kidd’s “Shakin’ All Over.” After the show, I bought the single at the merch table, where Jackson was up past 1:30 a.m. signing autographs. She told me the full album produced by White will be coming out in January.

Jackson spent some years playing Christian music before she went back to her early rockabilly tunes, so it wasn’t surprising that she included at least one song in her set with a gospel message — but what a song. She played one of my favorite classic country songs with a religious theme, Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light.” Jackson’s backup band was the Lustre Kings, who played a fine opening set of their own, including some Elvis songs they were practicing for an Elvis festival the following night in Green Bay. Oh, and did I mention that Wanda Jackson threw some water at me during her set? She was saying, “Boy, it sure is hot in here, isn’t it?” and then she splashed some water from her bottle at a few people, including me. Fun times.


PHOTOS OF WANDA JACKSON AND THE LUSTRE KINGS















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August concerts

Concerts I’ve seen lately:

THE SWELL SEASON’s Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova played five songs Aug. 12 at Lincoln Hall following a screening of the film that made them famous, Once, and a Q&A with Sound Opinions hosts Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis. What a delightful evening. (Of course, now I keep thinking about the tragic death of a fan that happened at a Swell Season concert in California a week later.)

LOST IN THE TREES played Aug. 16 at Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion, part of the “Dusk Variations” series. A nice example of an indie folk-rock band making sophisticated use of chamber-music style strings.

MY MORNING JACKET played Aug. 17 at the Charter One Pavilion, which was my first visit to this concert venue on Northerly Island, where Meigs Field was until Mayor Daley ordered in the bulldozers. Charter One is basically a parking lot and bleachers set up in front of a big stage, with vendors selling tallboy cans of Bud for $11. ($11!!!) Not really my sort of venue, but I guess it served its purpose as a setting for My Morning Jacket’s arena rock. The band showed that it still knows how to rock out with a vengeance — at least when it’s playing its old songs. Luckily, the band played a lot from It Still Moves and Z, but I wish they’d played even older songs. The more recent songs are lackluster in comparison, although the band almost brought them to life on stage.

THE SADIES were scheduled to play two nights at Schubas, but the second night was cancelled, and the band ended up playing just one show, Aug. 20. It’s a shame that this terrific band hasn’t become more popular and moved up to bigger venues. On the other hand, it’s nice that Sadies fans can still enjoy seeing them up-close in an intimate venue like Schubas. The guitar licks were as awesome as they usually are, and it was great to hear the Sadies doing some songs from their excellent recent record, Darker Circles. They even did double duty, playing as the backing band for Jon Langford and Sally Timms during one of the opening sets. And they finished off the night with an encore medley of tunes originally played by Them in the ’60s: “Gloria,” “”I Can Only Give You Everything,” “Baby Please Don’t Go” and back to “Gloria.”

Sorry, no photos from these concerts, but my camera will be back in action very soon.

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Phosphorescent at the Empty Bottle

The night before Lollapalooza (Aug. 5), Phosphorescent played an excellent set at the Empty Bottle — almost as good as anything I saw during the three days of Lollapalooza that followed. Phosphorescent’s recent album, Here’s to Taking It Easy, is one of the year’s best so far. The band (which started out as an essentially solo project by singer-songwriter Matthew Houck) played an odd, atmospheric variation of alt-country on its first two albums. The meandering quality of those records disappeared when Phosphorescent released a Willie Nelson tribute album in 2009, For Willie, and now that tighter focus carries on with Houck’s new batch of original songs.

The live show delivered the same smart mix of lush cosmopolitan country and ragged roots rock, with Houck’s voice sounding delightfully creaky. During the encore, Houck played a few acoustic solo songs, then the band came back for a soaring version of “Los Angeles” and one final blast of raucous rock.

The evening started out with a strong set by Chicago band Ceiling Stars, who earthy rock proved to be a good fit with Phosphorescent. In between those bands, noteworthy singer-songwriter J. Tillman, who has released seven albums in the past five years including the new Singing Ax, played a solo acoustic set. His songs sounded great — assuming you could actually concentrate on hearing them above the din of people talking over at the bar. Tillman tried not to complain too much, but he seemed a bit unnerved, saying, “This is brutal.” (Kim Bellware of Chicagoist also reported on this.) On a few occasions, the Empty Bottle has succeeded in presenting a performance of quiet music without the annoyance of bar chatter, but more often than not, acoustic shows are a bad fit with this venue.



PHOTOS OF PHOSPHORESCENT, J. TILLMAN AND CEILING STARS









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Lollapalooza Wrap-Up

Last year, I skipped Lollapalooza. It was the first time I’d missed Lolla since it changed in 2005 from a touring festival to an annual Chicago event. My main reason: I simply wasn’t that excited about the musical lineup. I wasn’t thrilled about everything on this year’s schedule, either — with a reasonably diverse list of 150 musical acts, who could be? But this year, Lollapalooza definitely had enough quality bands to hold just about rock fan’s interest for most of the weekend. And the inclusion of the Arcade Fire as one of the headliners clinched it for me. There was no way I was going to miss this.

Overall, Lollapalooza 2010 turned out to be a pretty good time. I saw several great sets, several good sets and some mediocrity. There were a few moments of feeling trapped inside crowds, getting rained on and stepping in mud, but for the most part, it was a pleasant experience. The addition of Columbus Drive as a pedestrian thoroughfare did make it easier to get around the festival grounds.

I reviewed Lollapalooza for Pioneer Press, including an overview of the festival and the headliners. And I also blogged here with some thoughts inspired by the Arcade Fire’s closing set on Sunday.

As always, it was impossible to see everything I wanted to see. So, yeah, I missed Devo, Spoon, Rogue Wave, Gogol Bordello, Warpaint, Nneka and major chunks of the shows by MGMT, the Drive-By Truckers and Social Distortion, to name just a few. During Friday night’s headline sets, I caught the first several songs by the Strokes (who sounded pretty tight) before heading to the other end of the park for the last part of Lady Gaga’s overblown, screechy spectacle.

I also dashed back and forth Saturday night. I began with Green Day setting off fireworks, and then I went north and watched most of the show by Phoenix, and then I went back to see Green Day set off more fireworks. By that point, the show had devolved into an oldies medley with “Satisfaction,” “Hey Jude” and “Shout.” What was this, a rock concert or a wedding? And Phoenix still hasn’t won me over yet, either. When I was in the photo pit for the first three Phoenix songs, the band’s energy impressed me, but I just don’t find the tunes all that interesting.

On Sunday night, I tried to stay in one place. While I would have liked to see at least part of the Soundgarden show, I didn’t want to miss a moment of the Arcade Fire. And I also wanted to see the National, who were playing just before the Arcade Fire on that end of the park. Alas, after catching the first half of a fairly strong set by the National (with a guest appearance by Richard Reed Parry of the Arcade Fire), I found myself standing across the field, waiting to photograph the Arcade Fire and trying to hear as much of the National as I could. Not an ideal way to experience the show. It sounded like the National finally broke out of their low brooding mood later on during the set.

Other highlights of the festival included Mavis Staples’ set on Friday. She and her backup vocalists began with some a cappella gospel, lifting their beautiful voices into the summer-afternoon air and singing, “I Am His and He Is Mine.” Later in the set, Staples introduced guest guitarist Jeff Tweedy “of the Wilco band,” who produced Staples’ forthcoming album, You Are Not Alone. He also wrote the title song, which sounded lovely in concert, bringing together Tweedy’s folk rock with Staples’ soulful vocals.

Another great set came Friday evening, when reggae legend Jimmy Cliff made a rare appearance. Cliff was considerably more exuberant and energetic than I’d expected for a performer who’s 62. He danced across the stage with a light and joyful step, even doing a few karate kicks. His voice had a weathered but strong quality as he played classic songs including “The Harder They Come,” “Sitting in Limbo,” “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” “Many Rivers to Cross” and covers of Cat Stevens’ “Wild World” and Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now.” A good vibe was in the air, as the crowd clapped along. PHOTOS OF JIMMY CLIFF.

I was not prepared for the outlandish experience of seeing Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. Having listened to the band’s record, somehow I expected a much more staid concert of the singer-songwriter variety. I didn’t realize Sharpe and his band have a fervent cult following — or that Sharpe likes to get right out into the crowd. The show had the feeling of a hippie circus, and some fans even climbed up into the trees.

The XX were a little pale and restrained, looking and sounding as if they didn’t really belong outdoors under bright summer sunlight. But they drew a big crowd with their cold, minimalist tunes, and the sound was cool indeed.

I wish I’d heard more garage rock at Lollapalooza, though the genre isn’t really well-suited to concerts on big stages where the crowd is so far away from the band. The Soft Pack were my favorite out of the scrappy young garage and punk bands that I saw, and I also enjoyed Wavves and Harlem.

Stars were as emotional and appealing as ever (even if their most recent songs aren’t as memorable as the early ones). Meanwhile, the New Pornographers did what they always do well: play one upbeat, catchy power-pop song after another. Neko Case of the New Pornographers later showed up on guest vocals with the Dodos, who played an intriguing combination of acoustic blues with more angular rock.

Metric’s Emily Haines seemed unstoppable as she sang and danced. I haven’t listened much to Metric’s records (and haven’t been that thrilled with what I’ve heard), but I can’t deny they put on a good live show.

The Antlers sounded magnificent and epic when they played songs from 2009’s Hospice, but the band’s other songs were less dramatic.

Dirty Projectors were the only band I heard talking about fonts during their stage banter. Their odd guitar lines and stunningly precise vocal harmonies created a sound that’s complex without being too off-putting.

Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison seemed to be pouring everything he had into his emotional performance.

It was raining during the set by British singer Frank Turner, but the damp weather didn’t diminish the strength of his forcefully delivered acoustic rock.

Other bands I liked: Social Distortion, Skybox, Mumford & Sons, the Black Keys, the Big Pink, the Walkmen, the Morning Benders and Grizzly Bear. MGMT sounded great when they played their cool new song “Brian Eno,” but I’m still not thrilled with the more popular music from their first album.

Despite the praise and hype that’s been heaped on them in England — and despite the presence of ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr — the Cribs were pretty dull.

And I don’t understand all the excitement about X Japan, which is just a Japanese version of Western hair-metal music. Other hard-rock bands from Japan, such as Boris, are far superior. But it was interesting to see X Japan’s fans gathered along the barricade, clasping red-haired dolls. As at many other Lollapalooza sets, it was the fans who made the show.

PREVIOUS POSTS ABOUT LOLLAPALOOZA:

DAY ONE: PHOTOS OF LADY GAGA / PHOTOS OF THE STROKES / PHOTOS OF JIMMY CLIFF / MORE PHOTOS FROM DAY ONE.

PHOTOS FROM DAY TWO.

DAY THREE: PHOTOS OF THE ARCADE FIRE / MORE PHOTOS FROM DAY THREE.

MUSIC UNITES US (INCLUDING REVIEW OF THE ARCADE FIRE).

MUSIC DIVIDES US.

LOLLAPALOOZA FENCE CRASHERS.

PREVIEW FOR PIONEER PRESS.

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Lollapalooza: Music Divides Us

Music unites us? So I said yesterday in my post about the Arcade Fire’s Lollapalooza show. But music sometimes has the opposite effect, as the Arcade Fire points out in the lyrics of “Suburban War” — “Now the music divides us into tribes/You choose your side, I’ll choose my side.”

The various musical tribes seemed like they were at war during Lollapalooza. A war of words, anyway. On Friday night, as Lady Gaga played at the south end of the park, I saw a couple of young guys running north into the field where an audience had gathered to hear the Strokes. “Fuck Lady Gaga!” they shouted, emphasizing their proclamation with a gesture of simulated jacking-off.

Not long after that, when I was standing in the photo pit in front of the Budweiser stage, waiting for the Strokes to start playing, some of the fans chanted the same phrase for a minute: “Fuck Lady Gaga!” And from what I hear, people also chanted the same thing at a Friday-night set by 2ManyDJs.

On Saturday, while Green Day and Phoenix played on the two main stages, fans watching the Empire of the Sun on a smaller stage reportedly chanted, “Fuck Green Day!” The hostility carried over onto the Internet, where some Soundgarden fans derided Arcade Fire fans as hipsters who like “crap music.”

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with expressing your opinions about what music you like or don’t like. It’s all part of a great freewheeling debate. But it quickly becomes tiresome when the debate devolves into insults about the fans in rival musical tribes. Those tribes aren’t defined as narrowly as you might think. Believe it or not, there are at least a few people out there who like both Lady Gaga and the Strokes.

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Lollapalooza: Music Unites Us

As much as I prefer seeing concerts in small clubs, I have to admit there’s something really cool about the communal feeling you get when you’re with thousands and thousands of other people who all like the same musical artist — especially when the musicians are putting on a hell of a show, singing and playing with unbridled passion, and the crowd is responding with thunderous applause. A sea of arms waving to the music. Groups of people dancing. Audience members singing along with the choruses, shouting things like “OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH!!!” far louder than they ever sang anything in church or school. If you happen to be stuck in such a scene at a show where you don’t like the music, it can feel rather hellish, as if you’re surrounded by the brainwashed members of a religious cult.

But if your musical tastes are in synch with the throng around you, the feeling can be transcendent. For at least this brief time — at most an hour or two, maybe a few minutes in the middle of a concert — it feels like the world is right. And if you’ve ever felt like a musical snob, hoping that the masses don’t discover those favorite obscure bands you’re hoarding like a secret — if you’ve ever felt like a musical weirdo because the bands you really like rarely play at venues bigger than the Hideout and never get played on the radio — then suddenly this big concert experience makes you feel like some sort of crowd-loving populist. It is possible for big masses of people to like the same music that I do! And it isn’t somehow ruining the music, as I’d feared it would. The world is right. But then, of course, the concert ends. And you start slipping back into the same old attitudes you’d had before. For a moment, it seemed like you were in synch with the rest of humanity. Now… Well, you’re not so sure about that anymore, but at least you know it can happen for a few minutes.

At Lollapalooza this past weekend, that experience came for me during the Sunday-night finale by the Arcade Fire. This was the fifth time I’ve seen the Arcade Fire, and I’m not sure if they’ll ever top the first two amazing shows I saw them do, at the Empty Bottle in 2004 and Lollapalooza 2005. Surely, by now the Arcade Fire must have mellowed a bit.

But damn if they didn’t put on an intense show on Sunday, the very sort of barnstorming set that helped to make them popular in the first place. They were more careful with their antics than five years ago — Will Butler did not jump into the photo pit wielding a microphone stand, as he did at Lollapalooza 2005, coming close to dinging me in the head. (Here’s a video of that moment; I believe I must be just outside the frame.) And as far as I was able to observe, no helmets were required since no one was drumming on anyone else’s head this time.

But the seven musicians in the Arcade Fire are still swapping instruments and working up a sweat as they pound away with their violins, guitars, keyboards and even a hurdy-gurdy.

The songs from the new album The Suburbs sounded strong, but older songs provided the cathartic climax of the concert, as the audience sang along with “Rebellion (Lies)” and “Wake Up.” It was as if the crowd was defying the lyrics Win Butler had sung earlier in the new song, “Month of May” — “Now, some things are pure and some things are right/But the kids are still standing with their arms folded tight.” These kids were not just standing there with their arms folded tight.

What followed, as Lollapalooza ended, was a crush of concertgoers trying to reach the exit gates. I got stuck in a seemingly immovable mass of people near one of the beer tents. Everyone remained fairly calm and patient, and I finally broke free of the pack. The crowd streamed out into the streets of downtown Chicago. Walking on Monroe along the Art Institute, I was in the midst of some folks who began clapping spontaneously. And then a bunch of us began singing the wordless chorus from “Wake Up.” It felt like we were trying to stretch out that beautiful concert for a few more minutes. Even half an hour later, riding the el home, I think I heard someone whistling “Wake Up.” And then the spell was broken, and the world was back to normal.

PHOTOS OF THE ARCADE FIRE AT LOLLAPALOOZA.

More blog posts coming soon, including: Music Divides Us … And more from Lollapalooza 2010.

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Lollapalooza Photos: Arcade Fire

Lollapalooza 2010 is over, ending with a good and proper climax from the Arcade Fire. More photos (and yes, some actual words) coming soon from Lolla. In the meantime, here are my photos of the Arcade Fire show from a couple of hours ago.

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Lollapalooza Photos: Day Two

Photos from Day Two of Lollapalooza 2010, Aug. 7, 2010, at Grant Park in Chicago, including: The Kissaway Trail, The Morning Benders, The Soft Pack, Skybox, Harlem, Dragonette, Stars, The XX, Grizzly Bear, Metic, Social Distortion, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Green Day and Phoenix.

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Lollapalooza fence crashers

[nggallery id=11]In the first two days of Lollapalooza, I’ve seen four incidents of people coming in over the fences without paying. The first time was during Mavis Staples’ set on Friday. As Staples was talking onstage about the march to freedom, security guards were marching out a couple of fence-crashers they’d caught. Later on Friday, I saw one guy scrambling over the fence to the west of that same Budweiser stage. Then a group of a dozen or so came over the fence in the same area. No security personnel were in the area at the time, and they all got in.

The biggest breach,, shown in the photographs above, came Saturday during the set by Stars on the Budweiser stage. It was a large group. I estimated about 40 people, then asked some other people who’d witnessed the incident how many people they thought they’d seen. One said 50, and another said 70. Most of these crashers appeared young, probably high-school age. They came all at once, climbing over the fence along Lake Shore Drive near the northeast corner of the Lollapalooza grounds. Then they knocked over a second fence, which completely fell to the ground. As audience members laughed, pointed or cheered, the kids scrambled into the park, most of them apparently getting away. The security guards grabbed a few of the crashers and were holding them near the fence when I left the scene. Later in the day, the fence they’d pushed over was back in place.

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Lollapalooza photos: Lady Gaga

Here’s the first batch of my photos from day one of Lollapalooza. I wasn’t able to get into the photo pit for the Lady Gaga show — I chose to see Jimmy Cliff, and getting to the Lady Gaga stage in time for admission to the photo pit proved impossible after that. However, I did walk over later and catch the last half-hour or so of the Gaga show. I took some photos from the audience, which is always tricky. Here’s what I got.


PHOTOS OF LADY GAGA AT LOLLAPALOOZA, Aug. 6, 2010, Grant Park, Chicago.

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Cap’n Jazz and Mission of Burma

This past weekend’s Wicker Park Festival had a pretty strong lineup on both days. I was there for the two final sets on the north stage Saturday night: Mission of Burma followed by Cap’n Jazz.

The two bands have something in common. Both labored in obscurity when they were originally together. And both are more famous now that they’ve reunited. Well, “famous” is a relative term here, but at least they’re getting more recognition now, long after original hey day.

In Michael Azerrad’s terrific book about underground rock bands of the 1980s, Our Band Could Be Your Life, he describes Mission of Burma touring the country and playing in front of barely anyone. Reunited now since 2002, Mission of Burma at least draws a decent-sized crowd.

The aging punks sounded fierce and alive as they played Saturday on Milwaukee Avenue. The kids in the crowd started moshing, slamming up against one another, as Mission of Burma ran through some of its best-known old tunes in the final part of the set: “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver,” “This Is Not a Photograph” and “Red.”


PHOTOS: MISSION OF BURMA

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Cap’n Jazz apparently had a pretty good local following back in the early 1990s, but I for one heard nothing about them until years later. Here I was, a journalist at a suburban newspaper trying to stay on top of such things, and somehow it escaped my attention that some young guys from Wheeling were making all this noise. This was not the sort of band that sent out press releases to the local paper. Some now point to Cap’n Jazz as one of the groups that influenced all those later “emo” bands. I finally heard about Cap’n Jazz when its lead singer, Tim Kinsella, went on to perform in a series of other, and usually artsier, stranger bands, including Joan of Arc. (For more background, read Jessica Hopper’s interview with Tim Kinsella for the Chicago Reader.)

Reunited, apparently for just a brief tour, Cap’n Jazz is drawing sell-out crowds at clubs. They even landed on the front page of The New York Times’ Arts section.

Saturday night, the fans were rabid with excitement as Kinsella and company thrashed through their songs. “Just to be clear, these songs were written 15 or 17 years ago,” Kinsella remarked at one point. When a fan apparently said something encouraging Kinsella not to go away again, he said, “It’s not like I’ve been hiding, man … If you’d gone to a Joan of Arc show, there’d have been 30 people there.”

Kinsella threw himself out on the crowd a number of times. As the show reached its climax, maybe or dozen or so audience members climbed up onto the stage and dived back into the crowd. With a minute left before the end, security guards finally showed up to see what was going on.


PHOTOS: CAP’N JAZZ

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Tift Merritt at Lincoln Hall

Tift Merritt has one of the most beautiful voices you’ll hear in today’s alt-country and Americana — or whatever you want to call the music she’s released on four albums since 2002, including the new record See You on the Moon. Merritt sounds a little more mainstream and traditional than some of her counterparts, such as Neko Case, but she’s still far, far better than the stuff that gets played on mainstream country radio. (And how many mainstream Nashville artists drop a reference to Mazzy Star in their lyrics or do a song in French?)

Merritt touched on all the aspects of her music during her set Friday night (July 30) at Lincoln Hall in Chicago, from soulful piano ballads and simple acoustic folk songs to louder, more driving Southern rock. The pedal-steel guitar of Eric Heywood (who’s played with Son Volt and other bands) added another lovely voice to the mix, dueting with Merritt’s dulcet vocals on songs such as the title track from 2002’s Bramble Rose. Her band also included longtime players Jay Brown on bass and Zeke Hutchins (her husband) on drums. During the encore, Hutchins stepped up to the mike for lead vocals on an a cappella song about Evel Knievel.

Highlights included the rocker “Engine to Turn” from the new album and a solo piano rendition of “Good Hearted Man,” from her 2004 album Tambourine. (Alas, we did not get to hear the title track, “Tambourine.”) Merritt played both of the cover tunes on her new record: “Live Till You Die” by Emitt Rhodes and “Danny’s Song” by Kenny Loggins. The latter is a song that I did not especially want to hear anyone cover, but Merritt manages to bring out its best qualities.

It’s too bad Lincoln Hall wasn’t more crowded for this fine show — the house seemed to be about half-full. Opening act Dawn Landes was pretty charming and tuneful in her own right, playing roots rock in a similar vein.


PHOTOS: TIFT MERRITT AND DAWN LANDES

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