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| From | "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com> |
| Subject | IPO Chicago, pt. 1 |
| Date | Wed, 16 May 2007 02:18:31 -0500 |
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<<Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 16:39:12 +0000
From: boim@att.net (Sherman)
To: audities@smoe.org
Subject: Jaimie's Tooth etc.
Message-ID:
<051120071639.29798.46449C2F000C25D90000746621603759640307010D@att.net>
What else? The IPO show in Chicago was really good. The bill featured
The Lackloves, Pezband and Off Broadway. I think The Lackloves are one
of the better trad power pop bands, and am awaiting their new release.
Pezband did "Love Goes Underground", "Stella Blue", "Stop! Wait a
Minute", several new songs, and many bluesy covers. They have certainly
changed direction since their breakup in the early eighties, they are
not a tradititional power pop band, more of a blues-rock band made up of
three virtuosos. Off Broadway did a slew of covers, preparing for their
all-covers show they will be doing soon. They are a trad power pop band,
their guitars crunch like cereal! They finished off with "Eddie's Pals"
which is a fun song showcasing why the bands from the seventies cook
with the original recipe.>>
Sherman's post reminded me that I never did get around to offering my
take on IPO Chicago 2007. The one show that was reviewed here (by both
Mike Hodges and Sherman), the last night's blowout at the Abbey Pub, was
the biggest and in a lot of ways the most fun -- when two acts as big as
Pezband and Off Broadway are on the bill, it tends to turn the gig into
an Auditeers convention.
Mike's and Sherman's takes were pretty much spot-on in my estimation,
although I'll add that Pezband's turn to the bluesier doesn't really
float my boat all that much. It's not that I'm opposed to listening to
blues -- if I have to hear lengthy solos, I'd much rather hear them in a
blues context than any other -- it's just that Pezband has such a strong
catalog of songs that it seems like a waste for them to barely dip into
it because they're too busy stretching out on "Smokestack Lightning" for
eight minutes to fit more of their original material into their
45-minute set.
And it's original material (or the lack thereof) that made Off
Broadway's set somewhat problematic as well. I don't care how old they
are now, there are very few acts as entertaining onstage as Off Broadway
(David Bash has said on more than one occasion that Off Broadway's first
IPO Chicago performance two years ago was the best set he'd ever seen at
any IPO anywhere). A lot of that has to do with their ever-manic
goofball frontman Cliff Johnson, but the band really is very tight for
an act that doesn't play out that much anymore. However, Off Broadway's
shortage of original material (only three studio albums, the forgotten
third of which supplies zero songs to their setlist) makes them very
cover-dependent. It's a somewhat strange situation, since their
originals are so good and are so well-received. But for the first time
in my life I found myself groaning when a band started playing a Beatles
song. Off Broadway did no fewer than *six* of them, and unless you're
American English -- the Beatles tribute band that played the Abbey the
week after IPO -- six Beatles covers in one set is excessive. What's
worse, the best Beatles cover of the night wasn't even performed by Off
Broadway; it was played by The Lackloves, whose novel power-trio
arrangement of "Across The Universe" was both innovative and
magnificently executed.
All that aside, Off Broadway really was the barrel-full-of-monkeys fun
time that one expects from that band. But I really thought that the two
best sets of the night were by The Lackloves (the opening act) and The
Handcuffs (third on the bill).
I'll get to my overall impressions of the festival in a subsequent post.
Greg Sager
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