Monday, December 20, 2004
There are certain nights when everything just clicks. Music, environment, sound, attitude, crowd (or lack thereof), etc. Although some details are definitely blurry and I'm sure there's stuff I'm forgetting, here are my favorite live experiences of the year...
Pylon - (The then-unnamed) Little King's Bar - 08/05
It's the performance that got us national publicity, but it's also the best show I've seen all year. To see hundreds of folks both within and outside the bar jumping up and down and having an amazing time listening to the sounds of a band that proves that they still had it many, many years later is a feeling I can't describe. It laughs in the face of other, much larger reunion stories of the year. In case you missed it, here was our coverage at the time.
Ceiling Fan, Lona, Southern Bitch - Caledonia - 6/20 (AthFest)
The fact that the club was packed to the walls and hot as hell didn't thin the capacity crowd at all till the very end of the evening. Three of my favorite bands back to back feeding off the energized Saturday night crowd and sounding as good as I've ever heard that club sound. There were lots of other options that night, and certainly many got more publicity beforehand and afterwards but this was the highlight of my AthFest.
Hope For Agoldensummer - Healing Arts Centre - 5/22
The crowd was filled with hippies (you had to take your shoes off), the wine was really expensive, and the chairs were uncomfortable. That did not stop this from being, hands down, the best HFAGS performance of the year. Not only was it a perfect setlist with lots of surprises, but the room was dead quiet and all of it was done with very little amplification. It showed of a talented band with no effects in an ideal setting with lots of energy. Hard to beat.
The Sunshine Fix - Caledonia - 10/11
The band had just gotten off the road. This usually does one of two things: make them so damn tired that all they want to do is sleep and could give a crap less about performing, or make them so practiced and perfect that they're exponentially better than they were before they left. In this case, it was the latter. I had always liked this band, but I never thought they'd wind up on this list. But that night, their harmonies were perfect, there was an energy about the songs that wasn't there before, they broke out a few Olivia Tremor Control classics, and the cool video show didn't hurt either. Too bad only about 40 people (including the opening band) were there to see it.
Phosphorescent - GO Bar - 7/17
Okay, so the whole set was Fleetwood Mac covers. In fact, more specifically, they performed all of Rumours and then re-played the opening track. People were packed in like sardines and many stood outside as well. Most of the songs were played perfectly and the crowd never thinned. At the end of the night everyone was sweaty but happy - so it didn't matter whose songs they were, that band owned them for that night. I've seen Phosphorescent give plenty of great performances of their own material, but nothing quite as incredible as this night was.
There are plenty of other memorable shows this year (Kimberly Morgan at Flicker, Annaray at IHOC, Don Chambers + GOAT at the Flagpole awards, Of Montreal at the Watt, DBT at the Watt, Todd McBride at Tasty World, Brown Frown at the UltraMod, Liz Durrett at Little King's, etc.), but for whatever reason, those're the ones that stick in my mind as I write this. Thanks to all the bands that make going out worth it.
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