James Blake at Lincoln Hall, Chicago, 5/15/2011

[Rae]

Whoa! My buddy just offered me an extra ticket to go see James Blake with him in a couple weeks. Besides the Pitchfork fest, he's only doing a few dates in small venues stateside and they're very hot tickets (the $15 face value tickets for his show in Minneapolis at the 7th St Entry are online for $100-$400 each). I'm super pumped. I'll bump this thread with a review after the show!

~Rae

[jonnyhambone]

I'll be there too! May be a bit of a cluster-f*ck of a show at the 7th St. but I was impressed with what I saw from the SxSW NPR thing - way less 'laptop confessional' than I feared...!!

[Rae]

Hey, awesome. We should meet up!

~Rae

[jonnyhambone]

oh, just saw that you were talking about his Chicago show...I'll be at the 7th St. Entry show but not Chi-town. If you're at the Mpls one too, let's meet up for sure.

btw, I did sneek in under their screw up and got that Tindersticks lp set for the cheaper cd price! they changed it the next day...

[Rae]

Nice.

I was traveling when the Minneapolis tickets went on sale so I had no chance to get one. Should be an amazing show, though! Give us the recap.

~Rae

[Rae]

This was dope! Full thoughts tomorrow.

Have fun at the show tonight, jonny-- you're not gonna be disappointed!

~Rae

[Davey]

This was dope! Full thoughts tomorrow.

Have fun at the show tonight, jonny-- you're not gonna be disappointed!

~Rae

Nice, I've been kinda under the influence of his record lately.

[jonnyhambone]

Excellent show! Never have I seen a show that packed at 7th St. Entry - or anywhere maybe - but not thankfully not an obnoxious crowd at all.
He translates great as a live show! Maintained that degraded, scratchy ambience from his lps, that he looped and stretched out, singing over it, the guitarist and drummer were incredible additions and then there was the (((BASS))). Holy Sh*t! Beer bottles were falling off tables and if there dared to be any pregnant women there, they def. gave birth last night. It was a really great balance of subtlety, heavy, and beauty with the inclusion of the sharp glitchy pops and handclaps that add such clearly defined counterpoint snap to the wash of scratchy atmosphere of his recorded stuff. Pretty awesome!

[Rae]

Yeah, I had a great experience. Moments of bliss.

It wasn't so packed at Lincoln Hall (the show had been moved from the much smaller Schuba's a few weeks ago, plus the Bulls were on television one room over) but the crowd was very well-behaved (maybe too much so?).

I thought he worked really well with a live band. A lot of the voice modulation/looping stuff that I thought that he was going to do off of a laptop was actually done live-- he even sang a few parts that I thought were just samples on the record. He was most in tune with the crowd when he did his more rhythmic stuff, although I thought that the hushed ambient moments were at least as good. That bass! An air conditioner kept silently whooshing on right above me for most of the set and through some cosmic serendipity I was flooded with a cool breeze right at the same moment that the trembling, wobbly bass note kicked in during "Limit to Yr Love". Most excellent. Aside from "Limit", his most straightforward song was the encore (which setlist.fm tells me was called "Enough Thunder") but I like that even his ostensibly traditional songs (verses, chorus, voice and piano) are still so fucked up-- he picks vocal runs and piano figures that would sound accidental if they weren't so meticulously reproduced.

Anyway, great music, great performance, great sound, great company, great time.

~Rae