Unfinished Projects

The last month was a good one for live music. While I have fallen far from my peak concert-going days (I think that my last year in college and first year in Chicago were undoubtedly the high points), I did make it to two pretty excellent shows in March.

The first one was Xiu Xiu, playing at Reggie’s Rock Club. I was shocked to discover, from my obsessively compiled records, that this is the ninth time that I’ve seen Xiu Xiu in concert. While I was really into them back in the Knife Play and Chapel of the Chimes days, I’ve sort of cooled off on their releases, starting with La Fôret. The problem there is that I must have also forgotten what an engrossing and totally excellent live act Xiu Xiu can be. The main thing that has struck me time and time again at their concerts is the way that every song is constantly being tinkered with and re-arranged, so that the same song will be very different from tour to tour. I think that this probably says something about Jamie Stewart’s mental concept of what a pop song is. It’s as if he has a strong compartmentalization, where the lyrics, melody, rhythms, and harmonies all exist in different dimensions and can be experimented with individually.

I guess that a more prosaic explanation would be that the personnel and instrumentation for the touring version of Xiu Xiu changes rapidly. This particular version was a full band set-up with a drummer and bass/cello player, which I think really made some of the songs. It’s probably no coincidence that, when I first heard Xiu Xiu and got really into them, they were playing as a four-piece, not the somewhat skeletal acoustic outfit that they became on later tours.

Anyway, here’s a video I dug up of Xiu Xiu playing ‘Suha’, which was my favorite song of the night (and one of my favorite Xiu Xiu songs period). The video is not from the show I was at, but it is the same arrangement and the same tour. This version of the song has a pretty sweet Disintegration-era Cure sound to it (mostly the keyboard, I think). By contrast, the album version of the song is more orchestral and dirge-y; not as danceable, despite running off a drum machine beat. I also have to give a virtual high-five to the guy who did the videotaping because it came out well. I imagine that Xiu Xiu is a tough band to record live, on account of the fairly extreme loud/soft dynamics.

The next show I went to was the highlight of the month, the highlight of any month, BOREDOMS. I don’t think I can write a lot of description or analysis about this show because you just have to experience it yourself. At this point, they have transformed from a band into a full-fledged force of nature.

In a stroke of brilliance, the concert was moved from Logan Square to the Congress Theater, so that they could set up the stage in the middle of the floor and let the crowd roam all around. I took in most of the show while sitting or standing on the actual stage, which was behind the band, but a great vantage point for photos.

As with the last time I saw Boredoms play, three drummers kept up a tireless, manic, and yet perfectly precise rhythmic whirlwind for a full hour and a half. This time, instead of grooving along in the monolithic Seadrum beat, the drum pattern would shift, wander, and cycle back to themes from earlier in the set.

Of course, dominating the stage was Eye’s seven-guitar contraption. All the guitars were tuned to various complementary open tunings, so that he could just wail on the whole thing with a wooden rod and unleash cosmic-sounding layered chords. Naturally, this kind of abuse broke a lot of strings and required constant retuning. So, here’s the shot of this one dude who hung around a mixing board and then sprang into action to fix up the instrument whenever there was an opening.

I left the show feeling exhausted and satisfied, so I can only imagine what it’s like when any of those drummers crawls into bed after each night of the tour.