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Don't look here for balanced, cold-eyed (-eared?) criticism of this show. This is not a review, as such. What this is is a giddy gush of gratitude to all the bands that played tonight and made it such an insanely beautiful experience. You see, I booked this show, consisting entirely of artists that I love and that, more to the point, Tom loves, to celebrate his 40th birthday. So Great Scott (the entire staff of which has been fantastically kind and generous and helpful throughout the planning and execution of this evening) is packed with friends of ours by quarter after nine, when things get under way.
Count Zero are first, as they had the most equipment to set up. It is a joy just to see them perform as a six-piece, since there have been threats of the band re-configuring. They begin with their most obvious salutatory, "Hello Somebody," a warm, lovely, mellow song. They proceed to mix up their tone, alternating these softer pieces with more energetic rockers. It's a little hard to tell, as I'm so blissed out from the lovefest around us, but I think this might be the best set of theirs I've ever heard. They just seem so loose and comfortable, and everything just flows. They're also brilliantly mixed; they can be a terribly difficult band to mix, with their profusion of weird equipment and samples and their many vocalists, and this is part of why I was eager to see them in this room, which has a fantastic sound system and brilliant sound people who know its every quirk. The setlist leans a bit on the rockers from "Robots Anonymous," their brilliant second album, because that's Tom's favorite. A high point is "Good News," a feel good song anyway and one where Peter's voice can just take flight.
Next is Tanya Donelly, and a high point of another kind. I suppose there's no denying that Tanya is the Big Star on this bill, and the one that a lot of people came to see. But what's really important here is that she writes fabulously beautiful songs, sings them in an achingly lovely voice with perfect, easy phrasing, and is a complete sweetheart. She's accompanied by Elizabeth Steen on keyboard and some backing vocals, and by Dean Fisher on guitar and drums. She introduces her first song, the haunting and freaky "Acrobat," by saying, "This is for Tom." And also the second one, "Swoon," a romantic ballad with a sustained high note of such unearthly beauty that it reliably brings tears to my eyes. I notice Tom wiping his as well, and by her third song, "Manna," we are holding each other and weeping more or less freely. It's that good. That one is also for Tom, and by this point she gets a laugh each time she says it. Then a Robyn Hitchcock cover, followed by the a capella section: she and Elizabeth sing "Dona Nobis Pacem," and then sing Happy Birthday to Tom. She closes with beloved oldies: parts of Throwing Muses' "Dragonhead" and Belly's "Witch" soldered together into a new song. It's an absurdly great, heartwrenching set, and it's all for Tom.
After that, there's really nowhere else to go but out to the artiest and noisiest extreme. Good thing Donna Parker and Kate Village are here! After striking a decidedly antagonistic posture in introducing themselves, they proceed to explore the outer limits of electroacoustic feedback. In the past, when I've seen Donna Parker collaborating with another noise artist, I've found her a little too willing to be static and let them drive, but tonight she is fierce. She's added a small microphone to her setup, and after she sets a really great whistling loop of sound going, she modifies it by moving the microphone around in front of her amp, now over the woofer and then over the tweeter, playing around with on-axis and off-axis effects. It's dynamic and nuanced and wonderful. Kate starts out slowly chording over Donna's "rhythm section," letting feedback and distortion do most of the heavy lifting, then actually props the guitar against the railing and wanders through the audience shrieking for a while. Then she returns to the stage and scrapes the guitar against the railing, plays with some knobs to vary the distortion, and finally thrusts the guitar at Donna, who scrapes up and down the strings with her microphone. This latter part not only sounds great, but looks really hot, too. It's a glorious screeching mess with plenty of depth and subtlety.
From there it's back to the composed and polished. Ad Frank writes a wittily bitter pop song like nobody else, and tonight he is the consummate showman. There are new Fast Easy Women tonight: a new keyboard player who does not sing (but whose '80s disco-fabulous keyboard lines are perfect) and, taking up the backing vocal slack, Sarah Rabdau! I've never seen her with Ad before, and it's a huge treat. Her voice is gorgeous, and she has the sass and presence to share a stage with him. I can also hear Eric's haunting backing vocals very well tonight, which is not always the case. (Did I mention that the sound and staff at Great Scott are really, really good?) And the guitar wizardry sounds unusually like guitar wizardry tonight, which really shows it off. The set list is an excellent mix of newer material (a new Ad Frank song is always a delight) and old favorites, and ends fittingly with "The Ticket Was Non-Refundable," the first Ad Frank song that Tom ever fell in love with.
As soon as Ad finishes, Clickers announce that while they're setting up, Tom will be issued a list of every song they've ever finished, from which he is invited to choose their setlist! They've also recently announced that they're going to break up, and this is one of their last Boston shows ever, so it's a seriously special ending to a seriously special night. It's also really, really late, which is my fault for the stupidly unrealistic schedule, so a lot of people have cleared out by now. But the ones who remain are largely rabid Clickers fans, and we densely fill the space in front of the stage. Tom has picked a fantastic set, mixing crowd favorites (our mother-fuckin' hands are well and truly clapped) and little-heard rarities, and the boys improvise awesome transitions between some of them. They also have a little time left at the end of their set, so they play my personal favorite, and my joy is complete. Then Carl won't let them stop, so they play Farhad's request, too. I can understand; I don't want this night to end, either.
