Webster Hall
No longer just a site for a cocaine-infused 80’s dance meat market, Webster Hall is now taking concert overflow from the Bowery Ballroom, and I am glad to see it. I love concerts, even if my aging body is getting less and less resilient to staying out late on school nights.
Last night I went to see Iron & Wine with Claexico with Craig (who, it has been confirmed, is NOT West Side Fo’ Life in Da Hizzy) and Amelia (who’s a just hippie).
The concert was fantastic, but loooooooong. It was just supposed to be me and Craig going, but it turns out there was an internet rumor that Sufjan Stevens, who Amelia loves, was going to be a surprise guest, so Amelia came at the last minute. I met her and Craig at a sushi place on 3rd & 9th, and then we went over to Webster Hall. Got there around 7:45, where I checked my bag and bought a $5 pint of water (5 times the price of gasoline!).
The crowd was mostly liberal east cost intellectual elite. You know, the kind that hate America and drive people away from the Democratic party?
Well, screw the red states, I love these people. So well behaved and mellow, I doubt Webster Hall had ever seen the like. Lots of beards and thick-rimmed glasses, with heavy hemp sweaters. Plenty of cleaner and trendier folks as well, but all with the same impeccable manners. I think I heard the words “excuse me” more times last night that were said at Webster Hall in toto from 1984-1999.
At first I thought it was all college kids killing time until the next Phish tour, but it seemed like everyone there had come because they were fans of one of the bands playing (which makes sense, because who goes to Webster Hall on a Monday otherwise?), and they were really respectful and quiet (with the exception of shouting out their love between songs).
First up were the Ebony Hillbillies at 8:00. Three local black guys, one of whom looked about 70, one was like 50, and the other was probably 45. The youngest guy played the fiddle, the middle guy plucked an enormous stand-up bass, and the old guy sat in a chair with a guitar (sometimes a banjo) flat on his lap, working the slide and singing the most awesomely unintelligible country nonsense I have ever heard.
I tried to find them on iTunes last night, but no go. I went to their website today at lunch, though, and ordered the CD. Thank you, PayPal, for making life so easy!
Next was this band Calexico. Three guys from New Mexico (drums, trumpet, guitar) with a bassist from Germany and another trumpeter / percussionist / backup singer from some Nordic country. They also had this weird guy Salvador who played every instrument under the sun and had a tremendous voice. The music is heavily influenced by Mexican mariachi music, but comfortably blended with American stylings. Very talented people.
Calexico did an EP with Iron & Wine recently (picked it up on iTunes last night, along with one of their albums).
Special guest Sufjan Stevens came next, playing two songs, one of which he had never played in front of people before. Sufjan is a soft-spoken young guy (like 23), who gets impatient with crowd noise and snaps his fingers for silence, going “Come on, people, settle down.”
More like Iron & Wine than Calexico, Sufjan plays quiet introspective songs with a soft voice and an impressive vocal harmony with his backup singer. Just him, his guitar, and his backup singer.
His goal is supposedly to do a theme-album on every state in the Union. He’s done two so far. I bought Illinoise last night on iTunes (I spent like $30 on MP3’s), but I haven’t listened to it. His two theme albums were like 2 years apart. He’s going to have to hurry up if he wants to hit the other 48 states.
Iron & Wine came on next. Word on the street is that I&W is really just one guy and a rotating backup band, like Nine Inch Nails (That’s pretty much the ONLY way you can compare them to Nine Inch Nails). The main guy, Sam Beam, has a longass ZZTop beard (much longer than in the picture I scrounged, though it will be another year or two before he can tuck it into his belt), even though he’s still young and it’s a rich brown rather than gray. He was wearing a thick, multicolored scarf that his wife made for him, and he seemed all hurt when someone in the crowd made fun of him for wearing it inside. He took it off to the cheers of the crowd, and it was passed around the stage for the rest of the night as other people wore it like a badge of honor.
At first I wasn’t impressed by his live work, but once he warmed up and got his groove on, it was a sight to see. He invited Calexico out, and before you knew it there were two trumpets, three guitars, three full drum kits, 4 maraca players, two bassists, a guy playing the harmonica and making clicking sounds with his tongue, and some guy… honestly, I don’t know what the hell that guy was playing. It was fricken’ great, though.
It went from planned stuff into an amazing jam session that didn’t end until after midnight. They never played my favorite song (Each Coming Night), but they did some other great ones like Cinder & Smoke, Woman King, Jezebel, Sodom South Georgia, and about 20 more. We left at the first walk-off, because we were all stiff from standing for 4 hours straight. My feet and shoulder were killing me. I’m kind of sorry we missed the encores, though. I expect they did Jesus the Mexican Boy and maybe Each Coming Night. Someone said they did a cover or two, as well.
Took a cab home. I wanted to take the subway and read more Feast for Crows, but I wasn’t alone, so there wasn’t going to be any reading regardless.
A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin, by the way, is an awesome fucking book. Remind me to blog about that.