By Jon Stone | @jwstone

Last Saturday night, after a long day in the sun at Lollapalooza, I walked the six or so city blocks from where I was staying in Chicago to the House of Blues for the pre-Lolla appearance of The Antlers and The National. The House of Blues, notorious for its Vegas-esque swank and commercialized kitsch is situated on one of the prettiest corners of Chicago, right across the river from Dearborn and Wacker and at the foot of the Wilco-famous Marina Towers. It’s quite a beautiful place to be out walking especially on a clear summer night.

The show didn’t start until 11pm, and after being deer-tagged incorrectly, they wouldn’t let me up to my balcony seat until I went back (twice) to get the right wristband on. The main room at the House of Blues (there is a “back porch” room too) has a mid-sized foor area with two balconies that are mostly standing room only. I wasn’t down in the pit, but from my position on the first balcony, I seemed to be looking directly down on the stage. So, for all its over-the-top “we-are-the-rock-&-roll venue” posturing, I have to say that there isn’t really a bad seat in the house (of blues).

The venue sounds really great too, so they myst be doing something right. It was the first thing I noticed when The Antlers took the stage and fired into “Kettering” from last years’ Hospice. I saw them in the Spring and was still pretty on the fence then about whether or not I thought they have the staying-power they are going to need to last. After Saturday’s performance, I’m beginning to think that, indeed, they do.

Maybe it’s been touring with the National that has launched these guys into a new level, but something felt different on Saturday than it had earlier in the year. It wasn’t that the quality of their sound had improved, necessarily. In fact, lead-man Peter Silberman had a rasp in voice when he shot for some of his stratospheric high notes that can only be the indication of touring nearly incessantly for the last two years. Rather, there was certain confidence in their performance. Hospice is a thematically heavy record – one that might lend it self to timidity, or airlessness after so many nightly performed repetitions. Saturday night, though, the music seemed fresh. The highs and lows of “Sylvia” and the story of “Two” both made the goose bumps rise and when that kind of internalization occurs, I know that (at least for me) a band is onto something special.

Again, I can’t help but think about this band’s future. Albums like Hospice are brilliant but risky because of their cohesive “concept.” The songs hang together so well; they pick up on one another’s lyrics and emotion and in a lot of ways rely on each other for the full emotional impact. But this can be frustrating for some folks. The girl I stood next to said she had seen The Antlers play several times, but the songs all kind of blurred together. I can empathize with this sentiment. I think what needs to follow for this band – to push things to the next level, so to speak – is a record that packs the same kind of emotional impact as Hospice, but does so in a way that single songs can stand on their own and survive in the wild as distinct entities. The National’s “Mr. November,” for example, is a brilliant closer for the band’s record Alligator, but it also works anthemically for the band’s diverse live sets which contain songs across the National’s catalog. Pull that off, Antlers, and I think you’re here to stay.

—

A few brief words about the National’s set that followed. I’ve seen them play now four times and save for that first performance – which initiated me into complete and utter fandom — the House of Blues was the best I’ve ever seen them. Matt Barninger seemed in an especially good mood and the band joked their way through most of the set announcing several songs by saying, “Alright, this is our party song.” Like he would the next day at Lolla, Richard Reed Parry joined them onstage for all of the songs from High Violet. He was barefoot and all smiles and very different than the crazed, costume-wearing member of Arcade Fire that I would see the next night.

The song that stuck out for me at both this show and the one that would follow the next day was “Apartment Story” from Boxer. It’s a simple tune but has that great, classic-U2ish chorus (“Tired and wired we ruin too easy” and the line “we’ll stay inside till somebody finds us, do whatever the TV tells us… so worry not, all things are well, we’ll be alright, we have our looks and perfume on..” I love the imagery here and the rare positivity followed immediately with irony.” This is why The National is an amazing band. Four times isn’t enough. I can’t wait to see them again.

Here’s the setlist for the evening:

Runaway / Afraid of Everyone / Brainy / Mistaken for Strangers / Anyone’s Ghost / Bloodbuzz Ohio / Squalor Victoria / Available / Conversation 16 / Sorrow / Apartment Story / Abel / England / Fake Empire / (encore) Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks / Secret Meeting / Mr. November / Terrible Love

Buy: The Antlers – Hospice
–
Buy: The National — High Violet

By Jake Feala:

I think the derelict woman that approached me on the street after the show said it best: “Poor lady said how’d you come by this cigarette, I said God save the Queen. God save the Queen!” God save the Queen, indeed, crazy person.

I think what she was trying to say is that no matter how big a band is in the United Kingdom, it’s still very tough to break into the US. When I first saw Editors three years ago, they were already pretty huge in England and were touring America behind the success of their first album The Back Room, which had sold millions and gone platinum over there. Here across the pond, though, they were only playing to one or two hundred people, tops, at an out-of-the-way dive bar. The show had a ton of energy, though, and turned me on to The Back Room. But since then (a span of about 20 years in Internet Music Time) I had heard very little about them, so I was excited to hear they were coming to House of Blues, one of the major venues in town.

I was just as excited to see that the Antlers were opening, but, from the perspective of a music-blog-following, Twittering, Pitchfork-reading-but-not-admitting indie fan, it’s hard to forget that swelling hype from the underground is no match for the draw of a band with two platinum albums, no matter where those albums sold. So it shouldn’t have surprised me so much to see that, instead of your standard hipster set, the crowd was packed with Joy Division T-shirts, bowler hats, finger gloves, dudes that looked like Ringo, spikey-haired British rockers, and English accents echoing off cans of Guinness. I swear I saw Andy Capp from the funny pages, complete with bulbous red nose and plaid flat cap. Hence the crowd was not too interested in The Antlers, but no matter, more room for me up front.

I love sad music, so of course songs from Antlers’ Hospice feature prominently on my Drink Whiskey And Cry playlist. But those lyrics are beyond sad, man, to the point where I even feel a little guilty deriving cheap pleasure from it. In Hospice, gorgeous atmospherics package heart-crushing lyrics about a terminally ill child. When a couple of guys up front started jumping around, I wanted to shout “How can you fuckers dance? Can’t you hear the kid is dying?” but that would have been unreasonable. Instead I stood still and let myself get goosebumps while singer Peter Silberman’s voice cracked and wavered on soaring highs as if breaking under the weight of the lyrics. Their set was short but they managed to play through more than half of their songs before a slightly awkward exit where it seemed neither the band nor the audience were aware that they were finished.

Pairing The Antlers with Editors was a schizophrenic decision — the bands’ sounds could not be more different, at least within the sphere of 21st-century indie music. But perhaps there is some logic to it: if songs from Hospice were the last thing a crowd heard before leaving the theater, there might be an increase in car-off-bridge accidents that night. As a remedy, Editors driving beats and hooksy hooks were there to lift our spirits before we hit the freeways. Compared with last time I saw them, they incorporated much more synth in their sound, and their songs are more infused with the arena flavor of The Killers.

Lead vocalist Tom Smith came out with sideburns that looked like an upside-down Giving Tree, coupled with a sweet ‘stache. Throughout the show, Smith rocked dinosaur arms and cradled the mic like Axl. On mute, his stage persona would be indistinguishable from singer from the National; together his mustache and voice recalled Snidely Whiplash.

Though most of the show had an infectious energy, the low point was when they slowed it down with trippy, ambient beats that work better for Portishead than behind Smith’s low, emotive vocals. They brought it back quickly, however, and closed the show with a rocking sequence of songs centered around what they do best: Edge-style tremolo guitars and dance-rock backbeats littered with 16th note high-hats that made the Brits go wild.

God save the Queen!

Editors and The Antlers play the Vic Theatre in Chicago on Monday, April 15th.

Buy: The Antlers – Hospice | Editors – In This Light & On This Evening

Myspace: The Antlers
Myspace: Editors

Set List: Signs // Die Die Die // I & Love & You // At the Beach // Bella Donna // Laundry Room // Paranoia in Bb Major // One Line Wonder // Down With A Glistening Shine // Talk on Indolence // Murder in the City // Denouncing November Blue // LOL, LOL // Ballad of Love & Hate // Rollin’ in My Sweet Baby’s Arms (Earl Scruggs cover) // Salina // Kick Drum Heart // Dream Appointed (Another Youngster) // Go to Sleep

Encore: The Perfect Space

It had been a couple years since I’d seen a show at the House of Blues in Chicago. I arrived to the venue in great anticipation, The Avett Brothers had teased some new material from their forthcoming album, I and Love and You when I saw them in Austin a few months back. Since then, I’ve had the chance to hear a few live records and have had the title track on in heavy rotation.

New songs “Laundry Room” and “Kick Drum Heart” embody the charging energy side of the Avett’s, while the evening’s closer, “The Perfect Space,” is as reflective as anything they’ve penned to date. It opens with a reasonable wish, “I wanna have friends that I can trust, that love me for the man I’ve become not the man I was” and ends continues with a heavy ending of “I wanna have pride like my mother has, And not like the kind in the bible that turns you bad.”

The Avett Brothers will leave your legs sore, your voice hoarse, and your memory bank filled with joy. They’re a band that you could drag along a pessimist and I’d bet the Avetts could win them over by the time the curtain goes down. Last night’s crowd was a mixture of the usual suspects: the die-hards, the booze hounds, the hippie chics, the businessman, and many more. The beauty of their live show resides within their ability to seamlessly transfer from rocker to delicate acoustic numbers like “Murder In The City.” If you haven’t bought your ticket for their show at the Barrymore in October, it’s never to early to plan ahead. The show will sell out, so don’t be left out.

Discuss: Drop a comment if you made last night’s show in Chicago. What were your highlights and thoughts on the new material?

Bonus: Scott Avett playing “Greensboro Woman” traveling from Columbus to Covington (6/21/09)

I’m well aware that some venues enforce a strict No Cameras Policy—even sometimes with a band or label’s permission it can be impossible to get a camera in the house from time to time. While I had never checked a show at Chicago’s House of Blues prior to last evening, I had a hunch that this would be one of those venues, and I wisely left the digicam back home. What I didn’t realize is that I should have left any writing utensils behind as well. Apparently, HOB has a strict No Pens, No Sharpies policy strongly enforced—at least according to the large scary security woman who patted me down last night, not the confused and helpful box office ticket manager. I barely got into the show last evening, let alone through the doors with my devilish writing sticks to jot any notes for my experience; next time I guess I’ll just smuggle my pens in my underwear. The whole debacle turned out to be one indeed worth fighting for, however. Once I finally made my way to the top of HOB’s staircase, I was ushered into a decent standing area to check one of my personal most highly anticipated shows of the summer—Wolf Parade.

The Canadian foursome (plus one) took to the stage around the 8 o’clock mark and wasted no time with small banter or introductions. Standing in front of a velvety curtain backdrop, illuminated by neon blue and gold lighting, these Sub-Pop heroes opened up with the lively “Language City.” The acoustics and sound quality of the various keys, guitar and percussion were one of the few benefits of the event being hosted at HOB; however the vocals appeared to be a bit buried under all the multiple layers. The whole time I was standing at HOB, despite having one of the better views and general crowd ambiance I’ve experienced at a venue in a long time, I still couldn’t help thinking The Vic or Metro would have been a better location for this show—but regardless, the crowd seemed pretty into it.

I can’t account for a full chronological order set list of the show as my Sharpie was ultimately confiscated and my allowed pen’s ink died halfway through the set; but I did manage to notate the majority of numbers that rocked the set. (If you caught the set, please feel free to correct and/or fill in the missing gaps on my list from memory below) Wolf Parade brought their dedication and solid live presence to their Chicago crowd strong—while the dudes appeared to be banging to the beat of their own internal drums, moving around only the slightest—they definitely overcompensated with their collision of overall sound. I found it incredibly hard to believe that amongst the four members, they manage to successfully balance their time and talent amongst something like 10 additional bands and music projects. I would have guessed rehearsals and months of preparation would have preceded the uniformed and formulaic jam session I witnessed last night, but I’m pretty sure they just kicked off their tour after last month’s record release. The Surf Rock/Victorian Rock/Kinda Arcade Fire, Not Really Modest Mouse vibes were excellently propelled and there’s no question after last night why Pitchfork gave these guys an unheard of 9.2 for their debut record and a not too shabby 7.7 for At Mount Zoomer.

Along with all nine of At Mount Zoomer’s tracks, most of 2005’s Apologies to Queen Mary were accounted for as well—although I was pretty disappointed to not hear “You are a Runner, I am My Father’s Son” or “Modern World.” Crowd surfing and plenty of fist pumping carried the 90 minute set through such stand out numbers as “California Dreamer,” “Grounds for Divorce,” “This Heart’s on Fire” and the insanely awesome (and long) “Kissing the Beehive.” Excellent group of musicians, incredible new album, and an enjoyable live show—I will definitely check Wolf Parade next time they hit the Windy City—but hopefully that will be at a more relaxed and Sharpie accommodating venue.

Set List:

1. Language City
2. Call it a Ritual
3. The Grey Estates
4. Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts
5. Soldier’s Grin
6. . . .
7. An Animal in Your Care
8. Fine Young Cannibals
9. Grounds for Divorce
10. Bang Your Drum
11. Shine a Light
12. California Dreamer
13. This Heart’s On Fire
14. Kissing the Beehive

Encore:

15. . . .
16. I’ll Believe in Anything
17. Fancy Claps

Myspace: Wolf Parade
MP3: Wolf Parade – “Language City”
MP3: Wolf Parade – “Call It A Ritual”