Present Joys
“We thank the Lord of heaven and earth
who hath preserved us from our birth
for present joys, for blessings past,
and for the hope of heaven at last.”

Tag cincinnati

2 posts between September 2011 and June 2013

I saw the Mountain Goats in Cincinnati last friday (14 jun 2013). It was as delightful and numinous as you’d expect. Some thoughts:

  • I disliked the venue, which was the ballroom beneath the Taft Theatre. It was literally like a big, low-ceilinged basement room with harsh lighting. The sound was excellent, though, so I can’t complain.
  • The opening band, the Baptist Generals, were excellent. A great mix of weird/artsy/distorty/polyrhythmy stuff and good, solid tunes.
  • On to tMG: this whole tour, the band is just JD and PPH. The setup was very simple: two persian rugs, two guitars and one electronic keyboard for JD, and a bass for PPH. Super good. The stripped-down instrumentation was so much fun throughout the entire night.
  • Specifically wonderful: the bass, the bass, the bass. Peter played that white fretless bass the whole time. (Which must be a new thing? The first time I noticed the fretless was last fall, and he only used it on a few of the Transcendental Youth songs.) I don’t know whether it was the more intimate venue or the lack of drums or Brandon Eggleston workin’ extra magic or what, but the sound of the instruments was crisp and articulate and wonderful.
  • That isn’t to say that Wurster was not missed, because I missed him a lot! But it was so fun to have the bass as sole rhythm section. Several songs (“Alpha Rats Nest”, “Dance Music”) had fresh-feeling, reworked bass grooves that seemed to be a direct result of the simpler instrumentation.
  • It was a cool set. Some old stuff, some new stuff. My two favorite parts: JD and PPH performing “Tallahassee” with JD on electric keyboard. Also: “Commandante”! There’s a song I wasn’t expecting to hear live. JD improvised some of the lyrics, at one point rhyming “the sayings of Chairman Mao” with “full Communism now”. Fantastic.
  • Oh, yeah! “Alpha Chum Gatherer” is a real song, and it is very good.
  • the bass! the bass! the bass! (Please imagine me shouting that à la John Flansburgh.)
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They Might Be Giants at Southgate House (20 sep 2011)

Tuesday night I drove to Cincinnati to see They Might Be Giants! It was at this venue called the Southgate House, which turns out is like this old Victorian mansion on the riverfront. It was really cool venue: the inside still had rooms and hallways like a house, and even had spooky period furnishings. A flight of stairs inside the house led down to the actual venue, an oddly-giant room that felt kinda like the Newport, but much more comfortable. And, as it turns out, possessing pretty decent acoustics.

First was Jonathan Coulton! He was great, as expected. The set was a good length and had a nice mix of older songs and new stuff from Artificial Heart. The choice of JoCo to open for TMBG seems so obvious and natural. You could tell the audience was very engaged, and a lot of people were familiar with Coulton’s music. That was really cool.

And then TMBG came on! I was standing in the second row back from the stage, on the right side of the house. For the first few songs when JL played accordion, he stood right in front of me. That Main Squeeze accordion is even prettier in real life (I was very jealous). Anyway, after the accordion set was finished, JL moved over to the keyboard stage-right and Dan Miller stood in front of where I was standing, which was cool. Danny Weinkauf also came over at one point and played a bass solo two feet away from my head, which was great. I was kinda sad because JL’s keyboard was directly in my line-of-sight to Marty, so I couldn’t really see him at all. I just imagined his drumming face.

There was this older couple in front of me, at the very front row of the stage, probably in their early-60s, who were very cute. During the last song, Dead, I looked over and they were both singing all the words to the song. It was awesome.

The show itself was just great. Top-notch everything. One of my favorite things onstage were the giant human-operated spotlights. The setlist was really good and balanced. I didn’t get to hear Canajoharie, so that was a little tiny bit of a letdown, but they played a bunch of other great songs so it was ok. Being a part of “Battle for Planet of the Apes” was odd; I felt like I’d taken a time machine back to the late 90s. Yeah! It was great. This was a fantastic show that I’m so glad I got to see.

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