hi all --
i was at this show over the weekend so here's my little take on things. This was a pretty cool space for the slip, I felt, since it was a bit smaller and they were more or less at crowd level. Not exactly a coffeehouse feel but certainly more intimate than a stage at a music festival. It started WAY late, at midnight. I was surprised that there was such a huge turnout that seemed intent on only seeing Marco. That's great for him, but kinda weird to see people leaving before the headliner. I wanted to say "wait wait wait." I don't think people there really knew of the connections between all these musicians, particularly Marco + the Slip... and that Marco would (obviously to us) join the Slip later. So I was a little bummed about that.
The instrumental to kick things off was kind of old school. I thought they were going to speed it up into Airplane, or that Andrew would just start up the Rats that are Even. BUT, they went elsewhere, which was cool. Two medium length sets with 2 encores followed. I made it to the middle of suffocation sleep and had to go crash.
I've always felt one of the least discussed / underrated slip shows is 3-21-2007. So I was glad that BAM went the direction of that show in terms of the setlist. Gaunt debutante, Crazy One, All I saw, and a few Eisenhowers in there. If someone has that show around (its only on my iPod) to share, I encourage people to check it out!!
I give the boys a lot of credit. They haven't really played as 'The Slip' much in the last few years. To be blunt, a few of the songs had some snags and dead space. BUT, they all seemed excited about being there and getting the magic going again. The second set was hugely more magical than the first, IMHO. It was as if they were waking up from a deep sleep. Or maybe warming up for a long tour?!!? Excitement!!
Brad officially has 'the bends'. I really thought that guitar was going to snap in half a few times. The solos were really bluesy and rocked out, with a lot of bends and some tapping too. However, on Fuji, when the ES-175 made a (triumphant and iconic) return (literally someone in the crowd was yelling "yeah, GIBSON!"), the licks were a lot jazzier and swingy. Wolof was hot, hot, hot... and although usually a vocal stretch, landlord/paper birds sounded fantastic from where I was standing... and the crowd hanging on to and singing with every note was a welcome surprise. Crowd was also right with Brad on Airplane/Prim. and really into it. If the slip can captivate the NYU crowd, popularity is inevitable, no? What's new, the slip on pitchfork.com?? alongside "Major Lazer" and "xx"? hipsters. slipsters. One can only hope. Maybe they should ironically change their name to "The the Slip".
Andrew was sounding Bonham-y, and I felt that he was trying to keep things moving a few times. He really was the rock that show... so fast but so heavy too. A few times he looked at Brad as if to say: "let's do this, bro!" and do this they would. Happy snails -- whoa! hello happy snails. Andrew was pretty flawless on his PVC pipe contraption... just seeing it out there on stage made me reallllly happy. The guy that came up to drum (I've seen him around before and play with Meowskers at the Narrows) was really good too.
Marc had a new guitar/bass or tenor guitar or something. It was surfshop looking and had a single lipstick pickup. it sounded pretty meaty. No fretless to be seen anywhere
. Airplane/Primitive was a highlight for Marc, I thought, and his work (mastery) of that floor keyboard in general is just mind-blowing. Another highlight for Marc was doing the little bass fills on Landlord. Marc also has the best staredowns of crowd members ever.
Marco joined in on a few towards the end. I wish he had told some of his fans earlier to stick around since he might come out with the Slip, or something to that effect.
So in all one has to take away from this the sense of BAM shaking off the dust of this material. One of the really new ones ("Devil back" or D'Gary"?) has kind of a syncopated drum loop that must have been misfiring or maybe Brad couldn't hear it, I wish they had just cut the loop. It was a rough start but it was a start and they had certainly warmed up by the end of the show. I personally felt like after Wolof they gained a bit of swagger to the end of the set. The crowd was loving Brad's announcement of working on a new album in BK. Random person: "Yeahhh Greenpoint!!!". That person later checked stereogum for information on the Decemberists.
oh! Before I go off and pretend not to be a hipster, I have to say "Crazy One", "Airplane", "Landlord", "Wolof", and "Motherwolf" were highlights. "Gaunt debutante" is shaping up to be a monster song. I think it's one of their best in the post eisenhower era. Motherwolf is really great stuff too if you haven't had time to check it out. Brad's guitar is in the open C tuning a la "song" and "portrait of a scientist" but the tune is kind of rocky and funky... very cool.
OK slip fans, signing out, hope you enjoyed my little blurb. I will be checking theslip.com with veracity to find tour dates for this year. I also want to say that I struck up conversations with people more so than usual at this show and a lot of us from the message boards are out there. "Oh, you're Ethan from sliplive.com!"... that sort of thing. I'm thinking name tags of your screen names at the next Boston / Brooklyn area show? It'd be fun!
cheers,
- John