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Oh, man. If you've read some of my other reviews (like the Tristan Da Cunha reviews here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or here; the Clickers reviews here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or here; or the Night Rally reviews here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or here), then you probably have a sense of how much I love all three of these bands, and how ridiculously excited I've been about this show. I think the best thing I can say about this show, really, is that I'm not disappointed. Tristan Da Cunha are as insanely brilliant and/or brilliantly insane as ever. There is a moment in one song where I think I actually hear the drummer make a mistake--this has happened once before--but, like the other time, I turn out to be wrong. It was correct, just more complicated than I could comprehend. And as has also happened before, I notice another audience member shaking his head and laughing at one point, at the sheer improbability of what they can achieve. (There is also an odd ceremony near the end of their set, which I still don't fully understand, where we are called up onstage to receive a styrofoam model of a Stonehenge Trilithon. I am honored and mystified.)
Clickers haven't played out in almost two months, during which time they have added a keyboard to their setup and written some very cool new tunes. Now, I initially found Clickers hard to get into. Then I found that I love their songs, and love hearing them played, once I know them and can follow what they're doing. I don't know if they've gotten more accessible or I've learned how to listen to them, but the new stuff is awesome on first hearing. It's certainly not simple, but I can follow it, and it's got a lot of beauty and depth. Some of the things they do with the keyboard sound a bit electronic-percussion for my tastes--it IS electronic percussion, after all--but it's all played live, not programmed, and I can live with it.
Tonight's Night Rally set is characterized by a really high level of onstage oddity, even by Devin's titanic standards. One song finishes with him having tangled himself up in his guitar and microphone cords, lying on the stage, singing (beautifully) into a microphone dangling across his guitar, and head-butting his pedals, with Farhad collapsing on top of him as the song ends. And for all that, the song is played pretty smoothly. The audience, which has been robust all evening, is dense and fanatical now. There are a lot of problems with the cymbal stands, but Luke seems unfazed and, again, everything comes off really smoothly. They close with the airplane trilogy, and the ending of the third piece is drawn out into a long, meditative excursion; it's calming and energizing and all kinds of beautiful. This city is blessed.
