Superchunk with Ivan
Howard (of the Rosebuds),
Billy Bragg,
Megafaun and
Bowerbirds UNC Campus 11/1/08
A daytime show! A free daytime
show! A free daytime
show featuring one of my favorite bands of all time, Superchunk, and a
bunch of other great acts!
Yes, you could
say I was fairly excited...this was an event that
met all of my parameters for what makes quality enter-
tainment, short of
providing me a free chocolate milkshake (let's get on this
people...it's not like Ben and Jerry's don't
sponsor crap all the
time). This whole affair was put together to celebrate/draw
attention
to the final day of early
voting for this historic election (spoiler
alert: Obama won!).
When I got
there, things were already in full swing, a wide variety
of folks gathered on the plaza to hear a little music,
maybe do a
little voting, and enjoy the amazing weather. Bowerbirds were the
first group I saw play, and I'm damn
glad I got there early enough to
make their performance. I'd only heard a few songs online of
these
Wisconsin trans-
plants before the gig, so my expectations were low, but
they were absolutely fantastic live and this mellow setting was
just
perfect for them. My first impression of Bowerbirds was a sound
that
was similar to Beirut crossed with beautiful
melancholy folk music, and
it was a mix that will definitely have me coming back for more shows by
them. And soon
hopefully.
Another
new-to-me local group (also transplants from Wisconsin) were up next -
Megafaun. They played
beard music,
which made sense given all three of
the lads had quality beards, real top notch chin sweaters. Like
most
beard bands,
there was a banjo involved, and god knows I love the
banjo...the band picked and grinned and played their hobo folk
music
that sounds like modern adaptations of some Alan Lomax mountain music
recordings. They even too their final
song out into the crowd, away
from the microphones, wandering around and about the kids and couples
and college
students who littered the plaza on that fine sunny day.
There
was a late-minute addition to the days festivities, a deviation from
the fine selection of local rock that had so far
been entertaining the
crowds. It was none other than Billy
Bragg, who just happened to be in
town for a gig in Durham
later that evening. Not one to shy away from
political matters, Bragg took the opportunity to split his time between
playing a few songs and speaking to the crowd about the possibility of
change facing our country. I knew what to
expect with his music, but
he was a surprisingly effective and engaging speaker, and often funny
to boot.
Ivan Howard from
the Rosebuds was next up, and
following Billy
Bragg is no easy task. As many times as I've seen
the Rosebuds, and
even his old band Reverse, this was my first time seeing Ivan perform
solo. It mostly went as ex-
pected - somewhat mellower, acoustic
versions of the Rosebuds songs we all know and love (and if you don't
know
and love them, you're doing something wrong). Nearly every song
he played could be filed under my favorites, songs
like "Boxcar" and
"In The Backyard". And to make things better, for the last two
songs
("Bluebird" and "Nice Fox"), he
had fellow band mate Kelly Crisp,
Megafaun and Bowerbirds come up and act as a backing chorus, and it
sounded
brilliant.
I missed the
rare Superchunk show a couple of
months back due to a
trip to SF, and while an acoustic performance
isn't quite the same as
the the full band rocking out, it would have to do, and it did.
This
was just Mac and Jim - it was
stated that Wurster was on tour with
another group, and Laura didn't like to be around when the band got all
sensitive.
Like the rest of the groups it was a short set, but any
'Chunk show is sure to be packed with hits. This time was no
different..."Cursed Mirror", "Throwing Things". "I Guess I Remember It
Wrong" all spring to mind, but what really hit
home was "Detroit Has A
Skyline" one of my all-time favorite songs from one of my all-time
favorite bands (if you do
the math, that means I really like the damn
song). I might have wet my pants, just a little bit, when they
hit the
first
notes of this song. Even half of Superchunk, unplugged, is
better than most bands could ever dream of being.
Things were
still going strong when I left to attend to some other
engagements, but I gotta say it doesn't get much
better than seeing
five music acts that you really like before you've even had lunch.
This review will
be not
unlike the show itself - short, sweet and to the point. I thought
I
was getting there early enough to
see the openers Cola Freaks (I'd
heard good things from the cool kids), but as I get to the front of
the club Jay Reatard
and his boys are already setting up...thumbs down to
missing the first group, but a big thumbs up to what was clearly
going
to be an early show.
Any Jay Reatard
show is going to be hit or miss, depending on his
mood...apparently on this fine evening his mood was
all business. This
is mostly great, as I'm a big fan of the songs, but there is still that
little piece of you that is kinda
hoping for a drunken mess and/or a
royal freak out and/or abusive audience members to piss him off and
create havoc.
But there was none of that, just the man himself playing
mostly a bunch of tracks from his new singles compilation that
was
recently released, with a couple of old tracks peppered in here and
there ("It's So Easy" from Blood Visions is the
only one that
immediately comes to my addled mind though). The whole affair
couldn't
have been more than 25 or 30
minutes long, if that, which doesn't add
up to much value time-wise but when you break it down to a per-song
basis,
you're sitting pretty on your investment...if this were the
stock market, which it isn't, and now I've confused myself yet
again.
There may be a pork barrels joke in here somewhere but I'm blanking
right now. Anyways, as the kids say, it
was a "good show".
"Let me
tell you a little story about acting. I was doing this Showtime
movie, Hot Ice with Anne Archer, never once
touched my per diem. I'd go
to Craft Service, get some raw veggies, bacon, Cup-A-Soup... baby, I
got a stew going."
