Category: show reviews

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HotChaCha/Freedom/A Place to Bury Strangers at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, OH, 9.27.10

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Ah, Grog Shop, someday I’ll learn not to be fooled by your posted show times. Someday, I will learn that in Grogspeak, 8 p.m. means “sometime after 10”. But enough of my kvetching. How about some fucking rock ‘n’ roll?

HotChaCha

HotChaCha are like an answer to my prayers – or, at least, a solution to the complaint I’ve made in this blog before about all the twee girly girls in music today. Singer Jovana Batkovic is probably more manly than most of the other men who hit the stage Monday night. Taller, too. Her long-legged presence, mic-phallic gyrations, forays into the audience and rolling around on the stage bring an undeniably entertaining aspect to HotChaCha’s live show, but it’s not covering up or compensating for anything else. Her energy feeds off of and perfectly complements the punk-spirited rock churned out by this four-piece. At once at ease and energetic, HotChaCha’s vigorous show is a credit to Cleveland, to women in rock and to the spirit of rock in general.

Freedom

To be honest, I think I didn’t quite get Freedom. After hauling out enough drums, guitars, pedals and padded Kustom amps to make the Grog Shop stage look like a music showroom, it felt like Freedom never quite capitalized on all that gear. In the end, it felt like a lot of noise that never coalesced into anything other than noise.

A Place to Bury Strangers

They will tell you A Place to Bury Strangers is a loud band. They will tell you to wear earplugs. They are not to be trusted. Yes, APtBS are loud. Gloriously loud. But fuck the earplugs. APtBS should be experienced without barrier.

From the surf-rock opening of “Deadbeat” to the free-for-all ending of “Ocean”, an A Place to Bury Strangers show is about being ensconced in sound – not experiencing it from a safe distance, with you here in the audience and the music there on stage. It is about the sound waves rattling against your bones. It is about feeling your brain swim in your head. It’s about the rainbow tracers left in your peripheral vision by what may just be the APtBS light/media show but may also be the music taking control of your cortex. It’s about sounds so intense and unexpected that your heart races and your breath catches. It’s about leaving the mundane world and entering sound.

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Stone Temple Pilots/Cage the Elephant, Jones Beach, 9/4/2010

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Jennifer bids adieu to summer by spending some time with former Ohio boy Scott Weiland and crew.

I have some thoughts about Stone Temple Pilots, but we’ll get to them in a minute. First I would like y’all to meet Cage the Elephant:

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Matt Schultz, Jared Champion (drums) and one of their guitarists

They were the second opening band – I missed the first one, TAB the band – and the best description I can give you is: high-energy blues-punk fusion. One of my favorites from their set was Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked, which sounded like it had just rolled in from the Delta. Meanwhile the lead singer was busy shimmy-shaking himself all over the stage and into the audience (three times!) like Iggy Pop. I was worn out just watching him. I also concluded I’d like to see them at their own show with their fans in the pit because I suspect it would be the best kind of epic rock and roll madness. (Translation: Please, please come back and play at Irving so I can stand in the balcony and really feel the bass rattle my bones while the kids go berserk on the floor. :D?)

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Matt Schultz

I can also tell you that whoever decided to send them out with Stone Temple Pilots gets a gold star, because it was another moment of beautiful musical congruency between new and old(er) acts. Anyway, yes, Stone Temple Pilots, let’s talk about them!

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Stone Temple Pilots, megaphone in full effect!

This was another band I never, ever expected to be able to see live. (I think we all know why.) And while it might have been a little strange watching Scott Weiland dance around in chinos and a tie (?!), my adult self was glad to see him alive and well and in one piece and making music, and my inner 17-year-old was really happy to hear that big grunge roar come out of the speakers. It turns out I had really missed those guitars.

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When not dancing awkwardly and trying not to flail into my neighbors, I contemplated the ways in which one imprints on things like music, how the sounds I loved, age 18, are still the sounds I love now. I was also contemplating how some acts grab the gold ring of a round two with both hands, and some have to learn the hard way that it isn’t 1991 anymore. STP has had their share of difficulties, but last Saturday night they came out and rocked it, no fuss, no muss, no diva shenanigans.

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All of that aside, I am also pleased to report that Weiland’s voice is still intact, and that their new stuff sounds great. I don’t have any fancy music critic terms to describe it for you, but I can say this: there was kick in the reverb and shimmy in the bass, and it was delicious. The next time I update my music library, I’m definitely getting their new record. If you ever cranked up Plush or Sex Type Thing and sang along, you might enjoy it too.

— Jennifer

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Rainy Day Saints/Wye Oak/Lou Barlow + the missingmen at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, OH, 8.27.10

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Rainy Day Saints

Kicking off the show around 10:30 p.m. (contrary to the 8 p.m. start time listed on the Grog Shop website. Though I’m getting to the point where I actually like the Grog Shop, their concept of time continues to mystify me) was local opener Rainy Day Saints. Playing straight-ahead, classic Cleveland-style rock with a modern influence, the band suffered from a muddy sound mix in which Marianne Friend’s saxophone and harmony vocals all but disappeared, and it was difficult to tell if any of the songs were good or not. Still, the band seemed to enjoy themselves, so there’s that.

Wye Oak

While the Wye Oak recordings I have heard have been a little mellow for me, the word around the internet was that skeptics should catch the Baltimore duo live before locking in an opinion, and this advice proved on the mark. While you might expect something tiny and twee upon seeing Jenn Wasner in her ballet flats and polka dot blouse, she unleashes an intense sound. With Wasner on vocals and guitar and Andy Stack on drums and keyboards, Wye Oak is equal parts dreamy Americana pop and noise assault. They won over the audience quickly, party through their music and party through Wasner’s charming and friendly personality, and drew vocal praise for “Holy Holy”, a song from their forthcoming album (which Stack works on in the backseat of their tour van “while I talk to myself for 7 hours,” says Wasner).

Sidenote: Red keyboards are so hot right now. Seriously, this is about the fifth one I’ve seen at a show this year.

Lou Barlow + the missingmen

“Lou Barlow!” one of the more, uh, enthusiastic audience members helpfully shouted through the night, just in case we – or Barlow himself – forgot who he was. (The same person would also like you to know that “The Freed Pig” is the best break-up song ever. At least, I assume this is why she stated this no less than four times until Barlow honored her request.) I wasn’t about to forget because, confession time, I was a little geeked out to be seeing someone I’ve been listening to for about a decade, in his various bands and projects, at this little club.

Barlow began the show solo with his acoustic guitar (the case for which sports a handsome Music Saves sticker), chatting with the crowd, telling stories and taking requests (or pretending to). He played sweet-voiced renderings of songs like “Magnet’s Coil”, “Puzzled” and “Rebound” before bringing on missingmen Tom Watson and Raul Morales (on loan from Mr. Mike Watt) for an electric set.

Watson and Morales bring great talent and energy to the stage, and it’s easy to see why Watt has been keeping this friendly, easy-going pair close and why Barlow borrows them. They helped pump up songs like “Home”, “Too Much Freedom” and “Gravitate”. Things really broke out when Barlow put down his Danelectro and strapped on the bass, closing out the electric set by tearing up “Losercore”.

Back for an acoustic encore, Barlow broke out his ukulele (a baritone uke as opposed to the popular soprano uke) for “Beauty of the Ride” and “Soul and Fire” before returning to his acoustic for a few more songs, including the aforementioned “The Freed Pig”, closing out the show with “Brand New Love”.

Barlow is a skilled entertainer, aware how to keep a good balance with his audience. During solo acoustic sets, he chats more – telling stories about everything from annoying his sisters with an 8-track player to finding a bag of weed in a hotel room left by the previous occupants, the Black Crowes – and comes across as amiable, funny and candid. “Did I ever tell you my Cleveland story?” he asks the audience at one point, creating the feeling of being friends who have hung out together before. But when Watson and Morales join him onstage, the between-song conversation was turned down as the music amped up.

I don’t normally add links to my show reviews, but I have to share Lou Barlow’s great website and kingofthecastle7’s YouTube channel for videos of the show.

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Postcards from Disparate Voyage

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The theme for my concert-going this summer seemed to be “voyages” and in particular water voyages, both to the water, or at least a couple of different beaches, and also on the water, specifically, the East River. As the temperature cools and the fall rainy season drifts in, I bring you some postcards from my last couple of trips:

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Willie Nelson, Circus Maximus Theater, Ceaser’s Atlantic City: The show was a little bit more subdued than I was expecting, perhaps a concession to the venue, the age of the audience (there were people in the front row celebrating their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary), or a reflection of Willie Nelson also getting up there (77 and still touring!), or some combination of those things. But it was still a great show. It was, in many ways, something of a relief to be able to just sit down and listen to someone sing familiar songs, undistracted by festival crowds or complicated stage business. He did, among others, Good Hearted Woman, All the Girls I’ve Loved Before and City of New Orleans, and I left refreshed, as if I had been visiting with old friends.

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Local Natives/We Barbarians/Young Man, The Beach at Governor’s Island: Young Man was kind of dreamy and pleasant to listen to while half-dozing on the sand; We Barbarians woke me up with their more muscular, drum-driven sound, and then Local Natives came on and got everyone dancing. They’re all a little bit more jam-band-y than I normally go for — I found myself thinking I bet this sounds better in southern California, where it’s sunny all the time and they have palm trees that don’t glow in the dark — but on the whole it was a pleasant way to spend a summer evening.

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The Diamond Doves

The Felice Brothers/Diamond Doves, Rocks Off Concert Cruise, East River, NY: You may recognize the Diamond Doves from their alternate incarnation as Elvis Perkins in Dearland’s back-up band. I had never heard them in that context, but doing their own thing they were pretty great. (Especially the guy playing the horn and the keyboard at the same time. Now that is multi-tasking!) And the Felices were, of course, their usual rockin’ selves, though the set was, once again, kind of heavy. Most of my pictures are of the Diamond Doves; the boat was packed and by the time the Felices came on I was too far back and too short to get anything good. I reckon y’all know what they look like by now anyway.

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William Beckett and Michael Guy Chislett, The Academy Is . . . (top); Gene Simmons, KISS (bottom)

KISS/The Academy Is . . ./The Envy, Jones Beach Theater: When this tour was announced earlier this summer, the part of the Internet that keeps up with TAI . . . did a double-take, turned to each other and said WHAT?? and IS THIS A JOKE?? Now that I’ve seen the results, I’m even more curious about who came up with this particular line-up. The Envy, of Toronto, Canada, were vaguely gothy hard-rock; all I can really tell you is they didn’t get lost in the arena, which is easy to do at Jones Beach. Then TAI . . . bounced out and did a solid set, pulling mainly from their somewhat heavier back catalog rather than their newier, poppier work and winding up with a cover of Fox on the Run. I enjoyed them tremendously, but the rest of the KISS audience seemed to be politely and quietly baffled. Then KISS came out amid fire and lights, and I hung around to watch the spectacle until I just couldn’t take one more minute of Gene Simmons’ tongue waggling on the jumbotron. I found they left me pretty cold, all things considered. Odd, perhaps, given my fondness for fire, glitter and ridiculous costumes, but I just couldn’t get into it. Also noted: high volume of attendees that were both a) kindergartners and b) wearing full faces of KISS make-up, which was adorable, but also underscored how the whole thing was more carnival than rock concert.

— Jennifer

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Beach Fossils/Warpaint/Javelin at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, OH, 8.10.10

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Note: Beach Fossils and Warpaint played under very low lights, and flash photography is of the devil, so no live shots to go with this review.

Beach Fossils

Joined by TJ from Cleveland’s Cloud Nothings, who filled in on guitar due to the Fossils’ guitarist quitting a week into the tour, the Beach Fossils dove into the night with big energy that did not dissipate throughout their set. With their chiming guitars, dance-groove bass and big-beat drums (the drummer stood as he played his minimal snare and tom set-up), they give off an ’80s vibe, putting me in mind of the club scenes from Pretty in Pink. That is a good thing, in case you’re unsure. The songs began to sound a little same-y after a while, but the band was fully committed to every song.

Warpaint

When I decided to hit this show, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about Warpaint live. Their recordings are laid-back, and I honestly feared their live show might put me to sleep. I feel okay admitting that because, in retrospect, I know how silly that fear was. As a matter of fact, as soon as I saw drummer Stella Mozgawa take off her shoes and socks, I had a feeling I was in for something good.

Not just good. Great.

While I can certainly enjoy shows from bands whose music I have only a passing familiarity with, it is rare that I can get into those shows like I got into Warpaint, eyes closed, vibing to the heavy grooves. The ambient guitarwork and sweet (but not twee) vocals of Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman are backed by the strong rhythm section of Mozgawa and Jenny Lee Lindberg on bass (slightly nerdy gear aside: found it cool that Lindberg plays a Rickenbacker bass). The sounds coming out of the bass and guitars verged on the spooky, almost – dare I say it – gothic at times. And Mozgawa sounded like she’d be perfectly at home in a black metal band a time or two.

A very impressive set that left the audience enthusiastic and asking for more.

(I would love to see Warpaint play some gigs with Cleveland’s mr. Gnome.)

Javelin

While they were very energetic and had a lot of people dancing (actual dancing – not the usual concert-style, shimmy-in-one-spot dancing), all-electronic music isn’t generally my thing, and I left three songs into Javelin’s set. But my preferences probably don’t do Javelin justice, so check out the Zender Agenda’s review of their set.

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Newport Folk Festival, Part II

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And here’s part two of Jennifer’s Newport odyssey.

Day 2

I had kind of had my fill of the festival crowd the day before, so on Sunday I was a terrible musical correspondent and spent the morning wandering around Newport looking at historic homes. The Mansions, as they are called, are the former vacation “cottages” of various 19th century robber barons. This is the back yard of the one called The Elms, and Louis XIV would feel right at home, not least because they have some of his wifes’ pillows in a case in their upstairs hallway:

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In the afternoon I hopped a water taxi (can I tell you how much I LOVE water taxis? A lot!!) and went back out to the Festival for the Felice Brothers:

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James Felice, Ian Felice, and Christmas

They played an oddly dirge-heavy set, though they did do funky music-hall versions of both Greatest Show on Earth and Frankie’s Gun. When they were finished it was time for me to leave and wind my weary way back up to Providence to catch the train home.

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Daffodils outside the train station in Providence.

Final thoughts: I didn’t see enough of the acts to comment on the musical mix, but I can say both this festival and Clearwater back in June have been an interesting contrast the kinds of festivals I usually go to, like the original Lollapalooza (hi, I’m old), Bamboozle and Warped Tour. It was a little strange being surrounded by grown-ups and allowed to keep the cap for my bottle of overpriced iced tea and seeing people eating real food with actual utensils while lounging barefoot on the lawn in their folding chairs. All things considered, however, I’d do it again next year if there were bands playing that I wanted to see. Though I’d probably be marginally more sensible and make a long weekend of it.

— Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Newport Folk Festival, Part I

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Jennifer took a trip out to the legendary Newport Folk Festival and brought us back this two-part report.

Day 1

The first night of the festival, one of the topics of dinner conversation was Why are you here? Not in a mean way, but rather: what inspired you to make this journey? The best answer I could come up with was: Well, I got a wild hair . . . which was met with bemused humming and ended in a tangent on regional usage of the phrase. It’s essentially true, however: I went to Rhode Island for about 24 hours largely because back in February I squinted at the calendar and decided I could and it was there and why not?, and oh yes, there are some bands playing that I kind of like! And possibly also because the Internet has permanently changed my idea of what qualifies as a “local show.” Rhode Island! I can get there on the train! (And the bus . . . ) That totally qualifies as “nearby”!

My voyage to the Newport Folk Festival began before dawn on Saturday and included a brief (and accidental) detour to New London, CT. I missed A.A. Bondy’s set at the festival as result, which was distressing, but I consoled myself with a walk around town. There is a surprising amount of street art in New London, and a good deal of it has nautical themes. Here’s one of a whale, which stretches almost the entire length of a block:

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By WyLAND, 1993

My favorite one, though, is this one , because it is so delightfully bizarre. Anyway, after getting back on the train, I carried on to Providence, RI, where they were getting ready to set the canals on fire (aka WaterFire ; I’m tempted to go back in October and see it for myself) and then got down to Newport in time to catch a little bit of Calexico:

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Calexico

I got there in time to hear them power through a couple of songs, including Guero Canelo, which is one of my favorites. Between bands there was peoplewatching, and also punks with horns and drums:

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What Cheer?

Next up was Andrew Bird:

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He played some bits and pieces of things that, he said, “might be songs someday” and that was when I wandered off to the beach:

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I have to say, listening to Scythian Empires with my feet in the water and the sun on my face was a highlight of the afternoon. I came back up to the main area for John Prine, who brought the whole thing back around to a more old-fashioned country-folk place:

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And then later I went for a guided tour of the town:

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This statue on the main drag CREEPED ME OUT. Apparently they put socks on the feet in the winter.

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The oldest sailors’ bar on the Newport waterfront and allegedly home of the best chowder in town. I had some, and it was delicious.

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Buskers by the creepy statue; they were pretty good, so we stayed a few moments to listen to them.

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Jazz on the way to the Coffee Grinder; there’s a public seating area at the end of the pier where one can sit and enjoy the breeze and watch the boats in the harbor.

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Bridges and boats by night, from Bowen’s Wharf.

I finished off the day with some delicious ice cream, and then went back to the hostel and crashed.

–Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: The Lemonheads, and a vast amount of feelings

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Jennifer has promised a forthcoming post on the Newport Folk Festival, but first she has some feelings about the dreaded “nostalgia act” vibe to work out.

Internet, in the last two weeks I have, among other things, seen the Gin Blossoms, Soul Asylum and The Lemonheads, and I have a lot of feelings on the subject that I’d like to discuss, but first I’d like you to meet two fantastic newer bands: The Shining Twins and The Candles.

These are The Shining Twins:

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Alex Weiss (bass), Marisa Kreiss (drums), Xanax Aird (guitar, lurking in the background)


They were the first band at the Lemonheads show. I knew a little bit about them before I got there, enough that I had them in my mental “you should maybe check them out” file, and so I was excited to see them on the bill. I wasn’t too sure how I was going to feel about the music, because the two songs I had heard – I Hate You and Stix + Stonez – were towards the whinier end of the punk spectrum. I am pleased to report that they are a lot of fun live, and that any whininess was overpowered by their Ramones-inflected groove. I particularly enjoyed Gregory and Why Won’t You Walk Me Home From Avenue C?

They were followed by The Candles:

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They’re a little bit country but mostly rock and roll, and with three (!) guitars, a bass, two sets of keys and drums, there’s a lot of layers to their sound. Also, this is where some of my many feelings come in, they are beautifully congruent with the Lemonheads’ sound. But before I go off on the related tangent, here’s a picture of Evan Dando, weatherbeaten but unbowed:

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He sounded good, and made my evening when they played Into Your Arms. I couldn’t stay for their whole set, but what I did hear was well worth the wait, both the 20 years and the 3.5 hours. The Lemonheads was one of those bands I never, ever thought I would get to see, and so catching them in a tiny club was a particularly special treat.

Which I suppose is as good a segue as any to the tangent, which is: How Do You Solve a Problem Like The Support Bands? It’s something I have been contemplating lately, as various of my best beloved bands from my high school and college years are popping back up and heading out on the road, in some cases with each other. I could not be happier to see Soul Asylum and the Gin Blossoms together, in fact for my 14 –18 year old self, that practically qualifies as a dream-come-true tour. (Remind me to tell you about the time I planned an entire vacation inspired by Runaway Train, which involved an actual train ride that was later cancelled (the train ride, not the entire vacation) due to flooding in Iowa. I was 17, and there was definitely poetry involved.) But as much as I enjoyed it, I felt like it put some unnecessary limits on them: the burnished brass shackles of the “nostalgia act.”

Sure, they were really big a long time ago, in the 1990s, in those dark days before mp3s. Okay, their fanbase skews a little bit older. But their tunes have stood the test of time, and, most importantly, they are making new music. They are not getting up on stage and rolling through their hits, note-perfect: they’re jamming through fresh ideas. And I’m sitting on the balcony in a community theater, watching my fellow fans clap, stomp and sway along, hemmed in their seats while Robin Wilson hops from the stage to various risers and outcroppings, tambourine in hand, and I’m thinking, Someone needs to get these people a club tour.

This is partially a reflection of selfish desire, because I want to dance in the pit. But also I think it could work. Filling the club would be the easy part; the challenge is in selecting the right support band. The Lemonheads and The Candles worked well together; if I was designing a tour for, let’s say, the Gin Blossoms, I think I’d pick Matt Nathanson , or, drifting a little towards the more folksy-side, Cadillac Sky. I still haven’t decided who I’d pair with Soul Asylum, though their Minneapolis neighbors Motion City Soundtrack are on the short list, as are Hacienda .

— Jennifer

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Jessica Lea Mayfield and the Black Keys at the Nautica Pavillion in Cleveland, OH, 7.24.10

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If the quality of a Black Keys show can be judged by the number of times Dan Auerbach shouts a non-lyrical interjection into a song (think James Brown), this show was stellar.

It was an intensely hot day in Cleveland, the kind where just standing in line can make you break a sweat, but spirits and anticipation were high, and I was pleased that the show had finally sold out.

The audience was decidedly split on opener Jessica Lea Mayfield, but this was not terribly surprising considering how different Mayfield’s music is from that of TBK. While it was disappointing that big brother David Mayfield was not on string duties, it was good to see JLM broadening her sound (and, one imagines, allowing David more time for his work with Cadillac Sky and his solo work) with keyboards and electric bass. And guitarist Richie Kirkpatrick is always entertaining to watch. The new song from Mayfield’s forthcoming album sounded solid, and early word is that the whole album is killer (in an interview, Dan Auerbach, who created the Polymer Sounds label in order to get Mayfield’s previous album out there, mentioned that he was trying to get the new album released on a bigger label to give Mayfield more exposure).

And Mayfield managed to finish her set looking just as fresh as when she started.

The Black Keys, on the other hand, seemed to be sweating as soon as they started. Making a triumphant entrance to the strains of GZA’s “Liquid Swords”, TBK got right down to business with “Thickfreakness”, possibly the best show-opening song ever written with its build-up-to-an-explosion intro.

The setlist was split nearly 50/50 between Brothers and older material. They played one of their fine Junior Kimbrough covers, “Everywhere I Go”, and “Till I Get My Way” blew a few heads off. Really, it is impossible to note how balls-out shredding any one song was without mentioning how equally rocking all the other songs were. TBK are probably the most consistently high-energy, high-quality live band around.

That being said, the songs off of Brothers seemed to light the audience up even more, and, in turn, fed into TBK’s energy. “She’s Long Gone” packed a magnificent punch, with “Ten Cent Pistol” making a great follow-up. Auerbach bounced behind his mic while singing out the “da da da-da”s of the “Howlin’ For You” chorus as the audience shouted along with him, fists pumping. The breaking out of “Chop and Change” (from the soundtrack of that movie the kids like so much) was an excellent surprise with Auerbach taking maraca duty very seriously (and putting out some of the best vocals of the night).

Even in heat that would debilitate other people, TBK went full throttle all night and Auerbach could frequently be seen smiling as he took in the cheers and screams of the “hometown” crowd (one wonders if he might have been remembering his early days playing in bars when he would break into N.W.A. covers when the audience stopped paying attention). Between Auerbach’s wall of guitar sound and Patrick Carney’s ever-evolving drumming, if you can come away from a Black Keys show without being energized, then I don’t envy your mental landscape.

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The Felice Brothers at Lebowski Fest in Louisville, KY, 7.16.10

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The recounting of the NTSIB roadtrip to points south will begin with the end. We are, as regular readers have surely noticed, a little fannish about the Felice Brothers, so when the opportunity presented itself to cap off our roadtrip by seeing the Brothers play Lebowski Fest, we couldn’t pass it up. It was the fourth Felice show for me, the third for Jennifer and our first show together. All very exciting, I assure you. And it was, for me, the most fun of the Felice shows I’ve experienced.

We set off from the hotel a little late and, sadly, missed “The Greatest Show on Earth” (a favorite of mine), but we sang along to “White Limo” as we crossed the parking lot and weaved our way as close to the stage as we could. The Brothers kept it upbeat for the drunken party crowd and Lebowski-ized a couple of songs, transforming “Where’d You Get Your Liquor?” to “Where’d You Get Your Caucasian?” and “Roll On, Arte” to “Roll On, Donny”. Other highlights included a guest spoon-player on “Whiskey in My Whiskey” and a cover of The Big Lebowski end credits tune “Dead Flowers”, which James introduced as a song from the Felice Brothers’ subway days.

It was, by far, the most effusively Felice-loving audience I’ve been in (well, at least the third of the audience that was crowded around the stage), and that certainly contributed to the enjoyment factor. Jennifer and I were even roped into what Jennifer later characterized as “a dude-bro kickline” during “Take This Bread”.

Due to the time constraints of Lebowski Fest, there was no encore, but after the equipment was loaded out and the big screen went up, the Felice Brothers perched atop their Winnebago to watch The Big Lebowski with us. A pretty sweet ending to a wonderful week.

(We failed to connect up with our friend Digger from Take This Bread, but he has promised me he’ll come to Cleveland in the autumn so we can take in a show at the Beachland Ballroom together. You’re all witness to this now so he can’t back out.)