By John Collins
This was my first S-K show ever, and first time at this club. Capacity there is 650+, and the show was sold out at least several hours before the show began. (I wish this club was nearer to me, since they have a lot of good shows.) The Quails and V for Vendetta opened. Quails sounded pretty tight, well-rehearsed. They (or at least the drummer) talked about the possible war quite a bit and were interested in talking afterwards to activists in the crowd. V For Vendetta is a two-person group, and as someone said in an earlier post, pretty art-rock. To these ears, the songs were fairly formless, with no choruses, and rather dissonant, but occasionally interesting instrumentation. Anyway, on to Sleater-Kinney.
I have a list of (at least) most of the songs they played, but not the order they played them. (I constructed my list from memory in the parking lot afterward.) They played most of One Beat, omitting Funeral Song, Prisstina, and (I think) Hollywood Ending. The first two songs were O2 and Oh! O2 really sounded great live, but to me the revelation of the evening was Step Aside (as a previous post said about the DC show). It was really terrific, and though I’ve been assuming they’ll play O2 on Conan, I wouldn’t be surprised or displeased to see Step Aside instead. Carrie invited people to sing along with Light Rail Coyote on the “oh dirty river/ come let me in” refrain. They sang Combat Rock, but didn’t introduce it as an anti-war song this time. Sympathy was wonderful. I think of it as a Corin song, of course, but didn’t realize how much of it is sung by Carrie. They played it right after Janet’s drum solo, since she gets a little respite in the first minute or two of that song.
Only one song from AHOTBO, I think, which is YRNRNRF. Dancing was difficult since people were packed pretty tight, but this got some feet moving. (I don’t _think_ they played Youth Decay or anything else from that cd — anybody there who remembers differently?) I think there was just one song from Hot Rock (End of You). From Dig Me Out they played Word and Guitar (and Corin so very cutely sang “I dream of quiet songs” very quietly, sort of teasing us as we all waited to explode during the loud parts), Little Babies (another good dance song), One More Hour, and a rousing (duh!) version of Dig Me Out to end the encore. From Call the Doctor, they played Joey Ramone, Stay Where You Are and Good Things. I don’t think there was anything from the self-titled record. I might have missed a song or two (besides the cover). If anyone remembers better than I do, or has the actual song order, please submit.
Near the end of the set they played a cover, on which Janet played harmonica (they joked that their next record will be all harmonica). Anybody know what that song was (or probably was)? They identified it, but I missed it and didn’t recognize the song (although it sounded familiar). Don’t think it was the Springsteen. It was a pretty poppy, hooky song. They also sang happy birthday in the encore to someone named Heather, without whom, Corin said, the S-K tour probably wouldn’t have happened. (Anyone know who that is?) Only disappointments for me was the omission of Call the Doctor and Little Mouth, but you can’t have everything.
The sound was ok, although I’m not much of a judge. Crowd was ok, very appreciative, some dancing, no incidents that I was aware of. This being my first S-K concert, it was a real treat. The ladies all looked lovely. CArrie in a typical button-down brown shirt. Corin wore a sleeveless blouse with some frilly stuff at the collar. I was pleased to see how much they both smile during songs, and how playful they look. Carrie’s face is very expressive when she sings, I think, and she often smiled in a sly way, like she was in on a joke. Corin too. After the enthusiastic applause for each song, usually it was Carrie who said thanks, although ocassionally Corin. Carrie did more of the rock star poses than Corin, but Corin did occasionally too. A roadie or staff person put out the set lists, not Janet, although she was on the stage before the set began looking at the instruments (unlike Carrie and Corin). I didn’t stick around long afterward (2 hour drive back to Greenville and class the next morning at 9), so I don’t know if they came out and did autographs or anything. I did see Janet come out just as I was leaving. The show began just before 11, and ended about 12:20, I think. Total of 18 or 19 songs, I think.
Anyway, it was really tremendous, one of the best concerts I’ve been to, and I’m so grateful that we have Sleater-Kinney. Here’s hoping there are many more cds and tours.
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