There’s distressing trend emerging at the Pabst Theater, that of boring, or flat out terrible openers. I often find myself retreating to the lobby whether I need another Pabst tall boy or not. It’s been going on for quite some time, dating back to the unlistenable CoCo Rosie who opened for Bright Eyes years ago. The streak might have snapped had I seen Conor Oberst on his last trip through when the always enjoyable Matt Focht opened; alas I was home with a broken foot. But back to tonight. When my sisters asked who was opening, I responded Laura Barrett and that I didn’t know a thing about her but I didn’t have high hopes. That may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy, because on the scale of terrible openers, she and her band were well above CCR, but they certainly were no Matt Focht.
The problem is that the thumb piano was never meant to be the main instrumental focus of a band. It can be enchanting in small doses, on Paul Simon’s “Further to Fly” for example or when Luke folds it into his layers of loops, but it can’t support an entire song, especially an instrumental to open a set. The best thing about it was the name, “Stop Giving Your Children Standardized Tests,” which drew an appreciative chuckle from the smarter-than-usual crowd. Her “band,” a banjo/glockenspiel player and a flutist, joined her for the rest of the set. Both sang some and played minimally, but minimal certainly seemed to be what Barrett was going for, and it did nothing to hide the inanity of the lyrics.
The last time I saw the Magnetic Fields their leader Stephen Merritt was in a particularly foul mood, belittling the crowd and his band mates. Oddly enough, it may have been the best show of theirs I’d seen. Tonight he was mellower, letting his complacency seep into the songs. The first half especially was very sleepy, but the surprise intermission, and the Red Bull I got during it, made the second half decidedly more interesting. There were a number of tunes from their ‘94 release The Charm of the Highway Strip, which they mentioned each time was “available on vinyl for the first time.” I finally bought a turntable late last year, but hadn’t actually purchased much vinyl yet, most of what I’ve been listening to was given to me. I resisted a stop at the merch stand earlier, but it was the engaging “Afraid of Trains” that convinced me otherwise. Who could blame her when “It was the army train that took her daddy from her, it was the bible train that took her momma too, and that high loud whistle made her horse run away, but the straw the broke the camel's back was you.”
The Magnetic Fields have been around for almost two decades now, and they drew from a vast pool of material for tonight’s show. In addition to their releases under the Magnetic Fields name, there’s also the Gothic Archies who recorded the delightful soundtrack to the Lemony Snicket movie. In addition to a song from that, there was a tune each from the movie soundtracks to Pieces of April and Eban and Charlie, and a couple from the lisp-inducing band The Sixths, and their records Wasp’s Nests and Hyacinths and Thistles. New release Realism, their “khaki album,” contributed the delightfully silly “We’re Having a Hootenanny Now,” as well as the bitter “You Must Be Out of Your Mind.” Most songs were introduced as being about vampires, but I have a hard time believing that. I’d almost forgotten about 2005’s I until they played “I Die,” a good choice but I’d rather have heard the amusingly twisted “I Wish I Had an Evil Twin.”
Which pretty much sums up my feelings about the whole show, it was good, but I kept wishing they would have played something else. Even their usually rapier sharp banter seemed tired, as if they just couldn’t be bothered to think that hard. The typically quick Claudia Gonson spent most of her time bemoaning the fact that the red shirts she and Shirley Simms were wearing were too bright for this tour instead of snapping off one-liners in Merritt’s direction. It was also strange to see her playing a keyboard instead of a real piano. Merritt and his ukulele just kept doing a Gary Numan impression. Huh? Still, it was a good show in a beautiful theater, and it is hard to argue with $3 tall boys of PBR. If they hadn’t been so great last time, I probably would have enjoyed this show more.
No comments:
Post a Comment