good morning fire island
There were three opening bands. Three, for a show starting at 9:15pm. Somewhere at the beginning of the third band's set, I began to wonder if anything was worth this; fortunately, it so totally was.
With aliste injured and cptmoll with family in town, I decided to just go to the Long Winters show by myself. I wasn't too worried about being in the front row or anything, so I left my apartment for the Subterranean out in Wicker Park fairly late. This turned out to be a good idea, since when I arrived at the venue at about 9pm, they informed me they weren't quite ready to open the doors yet. They did shortly later, however, and the few people who were there went upstairs to the venue (that's right, the Subterranean is on the second floor). I placed myself against the wall, stage left, a bit back from the stage, figuring the aid of the wall for the leaning would be key to making it through the night.
When the first band, Captains of Industry, started there were maybe 15 people in the venue, and most of them were back by the bar. They weren't bad, but they weren't very good either. The second band was What Made Milwaukee Famous, who were somewhat confusingly not from Milwaukee, but Austin. The crowd was thickening and I inched forward, not wanting to be shut out. The way it was set up, there was this platform a couple inches lower than the stage in front that the monitors were sitting on, and it ended a couple feet shy of the wall on my side. Originally there were a bunch of guitars in the space but they were taken away through the show, leaving an empty space. There was also a small portion of the platform extending past the last monitor, leaving a nice seat for me between sets, which turned out to be key also. By the time the third band, Menomena, came on, it had become quite crowded, and I was pretty much standing between the monitor platform and the wall. Menomena provided more than my $12 worth of hearing damage, mostly because they drums were not set up in the back but stage left, right in front of me. I ended up putting my finger in my ear closest to the stage for the entire show, which was ok because they weren't playing the type of music I would ever listen to. They had a pretty large fan base, though, and a girl in the front row kept giving me dirty looks as I stood their looking bored and pained. It was during their set, between 11pm and midnight, that I thought nothing could be worth this torture, but I wasn't leaving until I got at least some pleasure out of my $12.
Finally their set ended and the Long Winters came out to set things up. Apparently the theme of this tour is "no shaving", since all of them were sporting full beards (except the drummer, who only sported substantial muttonchops). I actually didn't recognize John Roderick at first; he looked vaguely like a big hairy mountain man, especially since he was wearing a leather Harley Davidson vest (more on this later). The main keyboardist/second guitarist, Jonathan, set up right in front of me, and while he was playing with his bank of pedals and plugs he introduced himself to me, saying "I know you got my back this show... make sure I don't fall off the stage or anything." Fortunately he was never in any danger during the show, but in any case that improved my mood ten-fold already. Also, my first impressions were that there were far too many instruments on stage for four people, but they managed to play them all somehow.
No setlists were put down, but I heard them noodling on bits of Fire Island, A.K., which I was happy about since it's now one of my favorite songs. Indeed, they opened with it; actually, they opened playing a bit of some general honky-tonkin' song. After Fire Island and Teaspoon, John started chatting with us, which is arguably the best part of a Long Winters show. Actually, I found out that this band is even more fucking awesome than I previously knew; I had only seen John solo a few months ago, but the whole band is amazing. Everyone played pretty much every instrument (well, except the drummer), and they rocked so well. But back to the banter. Someone yelled out something from back near the bar, and John told them to "order a mojito!". He then realized they were asking about hugs, and he said "Oh yeah, you want a hug. Right ok, hugs for everyone after the show. $5 each." Which was a significant discount from the previous $100 a pop at the 826 benefit, but that was going to a good cause. Actually I think he gave hugs out for free after the show, but I didn't try to get one.
He then asked for requests, and they played the first one that was shouted, Stupid. After that song he announced "Friday night is request night". People of course were shouting all kinds of things, so he said they'd only accept requests written on slips of paper. A girl in the front row picked up a setlist left over from a previous band and handed it to him, saying that it was in code. Apparently the first song on the setlist was called "Judas", and John said "This is addressed to Judas. What is this, some kind of Bob Dylan reference?" He put it to the side and they played another request that had been shouted. "When is the last time you went to an all-request show by an indie band?" he asked in the next break.
They were having some issues with the monitors and feedback in the mics, and John kept on asking them to do something with the vocals so that they don't sound like ass (for the record, they didn't sound like ass from where I was). At one point he got a particularly large blast of feedback from his mic and stumbled backwards, explaining that every show he gets a blast of feedback as karma payback for all the times that he's been a smartass.
When they announced it was a request show I starting to think of what to request. They'd already played Fire Island, Pushover would probably be requested anyway (it was) and the Commander Thinks Aloud is kind of long to shout. I thought of Honest, though, which is one of my favorites, and once I shouted it some others in the audience took up the cause, and he eventually played it. In another break he looked up in the weird small balcony area (more of a second floor that you could look over the railing at the stage), and saw some guy that was concentrating on something and looked like he was illuminated by a laptop screen or very bright cell phone. John shouted, "Look at this guy! What are you doing? Texting? Are you - are you blogging? He's fucking blogging this show right now! You fucking bloggers, wait until after the show is over at least!"
He introduced the leather Harley vest he had been wearing, saying he bought it at a truck stop in Indiana. He put it on and tried to get the audience to cheer; when we were not "hardcore" enough, he said, "Are you a fucking audience at a rock show or what? Fine! Go drink your pink cocktails." He tuned a bit more and then said that it was bad that he had sweated in that thing for two minutes and it already smelled like cat piss. A few songs later, he took it off, announcing that that thing had had it. Someone held out a dollar bill which apparently had a request for Cinnamon on it, and he took it happily. Other people were requesting Pushover and other popular songs, and he told us, "We can't play all our hits in the middle of the show! Those are the rules of rock and roll shows, you have to save all the hits for the end and put all the crappy slow filler songs in the middle." He played a song that hadn't been requested, Stand Straight, and then Cinnamon.
During the next break the sound guy informed them they had only 25 more minutes until Chicago's sound curfew, which was very unfortunate as we were all having a great time. They did a big instrument switch-up and John played the piano, the bassist played the guitar, and Jonathan played the bass. They played Blue Diamonds, then the bassist and Jonathan switched back and they played the Commander Thinks Aloud, which I was happy to hear. John went to back to guitar and they played some requests from before, notably Pushover and (It's a) Departure, which rocked amazingly. They finished up the night with the slow, acoustic version of Ultimatum, which won out over Hater High.
All in all, an amazing show. The full band totally rocked. The dialogue between John and the audience was awesome, and there's plenty of banter I've forgotten. As John implied, I've never been to an all request show by an indie band, and it was totally awesome, especially when it's someone who "plays" as much with the audience as John.
With aliste injured and cptmoll with family in town, I decided to just go to the Long Winters show by myself. I wasn't too worried about being in the front row or anything, so I left my apartment for the Subterranean out in Wicker Park fairly late. This turned out to be a good idea, since when I arrived at the venue at about 9pm, they informed me they weren't quite ready to open the doors yet. They did shortly later, however, and the few people who were there went upstairs to the venue (that's right, the Subterranean is on the second floor). I placed myself against the wall, stage left, a bit back from the stage, figuring the aid of the wall for the leaning would be key to making it through the night.
When the first band, Captains of Industry, started there were maybe 15 people in the venue, and most of them were back by the bar. They weren't bad, but they weren't very good either. The second band was What Made Milwaukee Famous, who were somewhat confusingly not from Milwaukee, but Austin. The crowd was thickening and I inched forward, not wanting to be shut out. The way it was set up, there was this platform a couple inches lower than the stage in front that the monitors were sitting on, and it ended a couple feet shy of the wall on my side. Originally there were a bunch of guitars in the space but they were taken away through the show, leaving an empty space. There was also a small portion of the platform extending past the last monitor, leaving a nice seat for me between sets, which turned out to be key also. By the time the third band, Menomena, came on, it had become quite crowded, and I was pretty much standing between the monitor platform and the wall. Menomena provided more than my $12 worth of hearing damage, mostly because they drums were not set up in the back but stage left, right in front of me. I ended up putting my finger in my ear closest to the stage for the entire show, which was ok because they weren't playing the type of music I would ever listen to. They had a pretty large fan base, though, and a girl in the front row kept giving me dirty looks as I stood their looking bored and pained. It was during their set, between 11pm and midnight, that I thought nothing could be worth this torture, but I wasn't leaving until I got at least some pleasure out of my $12.
Finally their set ended and the Long Winters came out to set things up. Apparently the theme of this tour is "no shaving", since all of them were sporting full beards (except the drummer, who only sported substantial muttonchops). I actually didn't recognize John Roderick at first; he looked vaguely like a big hairy mountain man, especially since he was wearing a leather Harley Davidson vest (more on this later). The main keyboardist/second guitarist, Jonathan, set up right in front of me, and while he was playing with his bank of pedals and plugs he introduced himself to me, saying "I know you got my back this show... make sure I don't fall off the stage or anything." Fortunately he was never in any danger during the show, but in any case that improved my mood ten-fold already. Also, my first impressions were that there were far too many instruments on stage for four people, but they managed to play them all somehow.
No setlists were put down, but I heard them noodling on bits of Fire Island, A.K., which I was happy about since it's now one of my favorite songs. Indeed, they opened with it; actually, they opened playing a bit of some general honky-tonkin' song. After Fire Island and Teaspoon, John started chatting with us, which is arguably the best part of a Long Winters show. Actually, I found out that this band is even more fucking awesome than I previously knew; I had only seen John solo a few months ago, but the whole band is amazing. Everyone played pretty much every instrument (well, except the drummer), and they rocked so well. But back to the banter. Someone yelled out something from back near the bar, and John told them to "order a mojito!". He then realized they were asking about hugs, and he said "Oh yeah, you want a hug. Right ok, hugs for everyone after the show. $5 each." Which was a significant discount from the previous $100 a pop at the 826 benefit, but that was going to a good cause. Actually I think he gave hugs out for free after the show, but I didn't try to get one.
He then asked for requests, and they played the first one that was shouted, Stupid. After that song he announced "Friday night is request night". People of course were shouting all kinds of things, so he said they'd only accept requests written on slips of paper. A girl in the front row picked up a setlist left over from a previous band and handed it to him, saying that it was in code. Apparently the first song on the setlist was called "Judas", and John said "This is addressed to Judas. What is this, some kind of Bob Dylan reference?" He put it to the side and they played another request that had been shouted. "When is the last time you went to an all-request show by an indie band?" he asked in the next break.
They were having some issues with the monitors and feedback in the mics, and John kept on asking them to do something with the vocals so that they don't sound like ass (for the record, they didn't sound like ass from where I was). At one point he got a particularly large blast of feedback from his mic and stumbled backwards, explaining that every show he gets a blast of feedback as karma payback for all the times that he's been a smartass.
When they announced it was a request show I starting to think of what to request. They'd already played Fire Island, Pushover would probably be requested anyway (it was) and the Commander Thinks Aloud is kind of long to shout. I thought of Honest, though, which is one of my favorites, and once I shouted it some others in the audience took up the cause, and he eventually played it. In another break he looked up in the weird small balcony area (more of a second floor that you could look over the railing at the stage), and saw some guy that was concentrating on something and looked like he was illuminated by a laptop screen or very bright cell phone. John shouted, "Look at this guy! What are you doing? Texting? Are you - are you blogging? He's fucking blogging this show right now! You fucking bloggers, wait until after the show is over at least!"
He introduced the leather Harley vest he had been wearing, saying he bought it at a truck stop in Indiana. He put it on and tried to get the audience to cheer; when we were not "hardcore" enough, he said, "Are you a fucking audience at a rock show or what? Fine! Go drink your pink cocktails." He tuned a bit more and then said that it was bad that he had sweated in that thing for two minutes and it already smelled like cat piss. A few songs later, he took it off, announcing that that thing had had it. Someone held out a dollar bill which apparently had a request for Cinnamon on it, and he took it happily. Other people were requesting Pushover and other popular songs, and he told us, "We can't play all our hits in the middle of the show! Those are the rules of rock and roll shows, you have to save all the hits for the end and put all the crappy slow filler songs in the middle." He played a song that hadn't been requested, Stand Straight, and then Cinnamon.
During the next break the sound guy informed them they had only 25 more minutes until Chicago's sound curfew, which was very unfortunate as we were all having a great time. They did a big instrument switch-up and John played the piano, the bassist played the guitar, and Jonathan played the bass. They played Blue Diamonds, then the bassist and Jonathan switched back and they played the Commander Thinks Aloud, which I was happy to hear. John went to back to guitar and they played some requests from before, notably Pushover and (It's a) Departure, which rocked amazingly. They finished up the night with the slow, acoustic version of Ultimatum, which won out over Hater High.
All in all, an amazing show. The full band totally rocked. The dialogue between John and the audience was awesome, and there's plenty of banter I've forgotten. As John implied, I've never been to an all request show by an indie band, and it was totally awesome, especially when it's someone who "plays" as much with the audience as John.