I'm back on trackish or on track for my behind schedule musings. This week I'm going to go back to last month and all of the concerts that I saw in the month of June. Some of the best touring musicians around including one indie Scottish band, and two festival and concert main stays. This week I will be reviewing Belle and Sebastian, My Morning Jacket, and Dave Matthews Band live in concert.
Belle and Sebastian 06/18/15 Uptown Theater
For the second time in my life I found myself at the Uptown Theater surrounded by more hipsters than I had ever seen. The first time was at Neutral Milk Hotel, this time was for the Scottish indie band Neutral Milk Hotel. We left right after I got off work so we missed the opener getting there just in time for Belle and Sebastian. Right at 8:30 the band take the stage and start with a song off of the new album Nobody's Empire and The Party Line which started a full on hipster dance party. Next up came two songs from their very first album Tigermilk, The State I'm In and Expectations. After that came the most long distance request I have ever seen. A couple came all the way from Texas to the Uptown Theater because they love it there and they were dying to hear Funny Little Frog so the band played it for them. After three new songs off of Girls in Peacetime Want to dance The brought fans on stage to play songs off of all the older albums.
Belle and Sebastian perform The Blues are Still Blue.
The fans remained on stage dancing until the last couple songs of the main set, ending with I Didn't See It Coming and Judy and the Dream of Horses. The band came back for a two song encore of Me and the Major from If Your Feeling Sinister and my favorite song The Blues are Still Blue from The Life Pursuit. The set played songs from all of their albums lasting 18 songs and almost 2 hours, it was a blast. The band looked like they were having a blast also, recanting stories from Bonnaroo where John Hamm had fed them gummy bears. The shows are always more fun when the band is into it. Belle and Sebastian loved every minute of it.
My Morning Jacket 06/27/15 Northrop Auditorium
We got there thinking we were running late, but we ended up getting there in time to see the opener Lizzo. She was a rapper handpicked by singer Jim James to start the show. She was one of the most high energy openers I had seen in a long time even if I wasn't the biggest fan of her music. The highlight was her throwing cookies into the audience during the song Bitches and Cookies. This tour was different because they were doing two nights in every city with two completely different setlists both nights. This was sort of unnerving because they have one that to me was far superior than the other. I didn't know which setlist we were going to get until we got there. They started up at 9 on the nose with Cicuital followed by a blasting Evil Urges, I'm Amazed, and Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 1. Jim James would walked around in a cape high fiving the audience throughout much of the night all while dancing and killing it on vocals. He continued to amaze the audience with songs from all of his albums. Finally getting to one of my favorites Gideon and beginning to blow the audience away. It would continue to build in intensity and volume from here to the end of the night. That's the thing about a My Morning Jacket show it starts loud then it mellows to show off beautiful ballads and folk songs, then it builds and builds till the end where it explodes into a thing of indescribably beauty that gives you chills.
My Morning Jacket performing One Big Holiday live.
The next few songs were Steam Engine, The Bear, and In It's Infancy. They blew the doors down with Dancfloors before choosing to end the set with the two best songs of the new album Only Memories Remain, and Tropics and jamming the hell out of them. I knew what was coming next but it didn't matter it was still going to be mind blowing. They came back and started the encore with Victory Dance and Lay Low before the one two punch of my two favorite songs Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 2 and One Big Holiday. They way extended both songs jamming for 20 minutes and blasting One Big Holiday to an absolutely incredible volume worthy or an Iron Maiden show. They did it subtly so you didn't notice until after the show when the your ears were ringing and you were too busy being starstruck with the wonder of what you just witnessed to care.
Dave Matthews Band 06/30/15 Wells Fargo Arena
I know this was strange to think that I would ever have to drag myself away from something to attend a concert, especially Dave, but it was the semifinals of the world cup against Germany and I really had trouble. I waited till half time and then I bolted out the door went down town and took my seat. He was supposed to start at 7:30, but he didn't actually start till 8. He was playing two sets each night one acoustic and one electric. He started the show by himself with just a guitar on a cover song called Rye Wiskey before playing his own song Bartender and Stay or leave. As the set went on one by one he would bring out one member at a time to accompany him as he went. The biggest moments of the set came on What Would You Say and Two Step. They were fun singalongs, but he had skipped a lot of big songs so the second half was going to half to be huge, which it was.
Dave Matthews performing Ants Marching live.
After a 15 minute intermission he came back to a full electric stage show with Minarets. Lots of jamming huge songs with great big sing alongs. The next few songs were the songs for the die hard fans with songs like Gravedigger, #41, and Rooftop. Don't worry thought the hits were coming, but for now the epic jam sessions were worth it. After fun songs like Black and Blue Bird, Dancing Nancies, and an epic version of Crush came the hit parade. Virginia in the Rain, Shake Me Like a Monkey, Everyday, and Grey Street ended the set with booming applause. Finally Dave and company came back and played what everyone wanted to hear the beautiful Space Between, and the epic closer Ants Marching. The latter was jammed out for a solid 10 minutes and we loved every second of it. I was so happy with the setlist and judging my his other shows we got lucky, others weren't as great. This show is one you need to see as a diehard or just a casual fan. They jam out, play the hits, trade solos, and rock out like nobody's business.
No comments:
Post a Comment