Rae's live music appreciation thread

resurrect! yo.
I went out to a pretty great No Age show a few months ago...July I think. Lots of steppin' on looped and fuzzed-out guitar barrage pedals with the most blissful pop melodies laid over. No Age and Jay Reatard (who played the late show at the same spot that night but I was too tired for stickin' around...) both put out a perfect pop/punk mix that not many bands since maybe Husker Du and Wire have hit on in awhile.

btw...I'm going to see Wire at First Ave. on Oct. 17th and WovenHand on Oct. 23rd.
Thinking about driving to MegaFaun on Fri. Sept. 26th in Menomenie, WI...these guys have been playing as the Akron/Family house-band of late and were Bon Iver's band before he went solo last year. Neko Case is here tomorrow with Giant Sand opening...anyone seen her?...I'm debating this show at the moment.

Just saw Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet last night at the Guthrie Theatre. Really great band with Bela Fleck, Casey Dreissen, etc. She plays sorta traditional Appalacian-style bluegrass with alot of Schezuan Province traditional folk songs in the mix. Each member of the band takes the occasional solo that makes it worth the price of admission each time.

I was thinking about bumping this thread after I went to see Grinderman last week (Warren Ellis is a madman) but I had had had to do it for this one.

Superchunk was insanely great! My feet barely touched the floor throughout the entire set. So often, I've seen nostalgia shows that were fun but didn't move me (see: this summer's Pavement show) but I can't conceive of this band being any better in their prime. Hell, maybe this is their prime!

Times New Viking opened and they were okay. I was a little bummed that another touring band was brought into open this show (and it was odd that it was TNV, who just opened for Guided By Voices here about six weeks ago) instead of one of the legion of local bands that would've been a perfect pairing, but they weren't terrible. I expected them to be a little noisier but they were actually really crisp with propulsive drumming, some organ stuff, and razor-sharp guitar lines. The set seemed to get better with each song and ended on a high note.

Superchunk wildly exceeded any of my expectations. I can't even remember what they opened with but "Skip Steps 1 & 3" was what sent me into heaven, and the whole set was a sustained high from there. They hit all my favorite tracks on the new record ("My Gap Feels Weird", "Learned to Surf", "Crossed Wires", "Digging for Something") and ran through a cornucopia of catalog highlights like "Driveway to Driveway" and "The First Part". The encore was "Seed Toss" followed by "Everything at Once" and then an absolutely scorching cover of Hüsker Dü's "Something I Learned Today" into "Slack Motherfucker". My only complaint is that they didn't play "Detroit Has a Skyline" (I almost couldn't believe that they didn't play it). They were just so tight and energetic the whole time... man, a show for the ages.

Here's a pic (you can see the back of my head in the front row-- exclamation points added for emphasis):

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/2...nkfirstave.jpg

~Rae

Just noticed the post above mine where jonny saw Jay Reatard (at the Entry?). RIP.

Also, I went to that Neko Case/Giant Sand show you mentioned, but in Duluth. It was grrreat.

~Rae