Great array of bands last night, one of the best of the festival thus far:

BRANDON McCULLOCH -- Did the moody singer/songwriter thing on solo acoustic.
I always feel bad for this type of performer, as solo singer/songwriters
tend to have an uphill battle on their hands in front of an IPO crowd. There
are always a lot of people present to see some band or other who don't
understand acoustic etiquette (if you want to laugh and talk loudly with
your friends, please leave the room); the crowd tends to become impatient
with quiet and introspective songs; and the tone of an acoustic performer is
often too downbeat for the occasion. To do this right in an IPO setting, one
really needs to keep the tempos brisk and know how to verbally engage and
banter with an audience, the way that Michael Carpenter does so well and Dag
Juhlin did on Sunday night at Schubas.

THE LAYAWAYS -- Local critical favorites who executed a set of really
polished songs, but were a little too shoegazery for my taste. They provided
one of the most amusing moments of the night when they did a droning and
mumbled-vocal cover of "Help Me Rhonda" that left at least half the crowd
completely in the dark. As David Bash said immediately afterward onstage, it
took him halfway through the song before he realized that they were covering
the Beach Boys. I got it halfway through the song as well, and muttered,
"Isn't that 'Help Me Rhonda'?" My merch partner Patti, thinking that I was
making a joke at the band's expense, punched me in the arm.

BRUISE -- Performed an excellent set that really won over the crowd. Bruise
is the Kelly's Heels lineup, but with Isobel Morris singing and guitarring
and performing her songs, with Bob Kelly shifted over to bass. Isobel's got
an interesting style and array of songs; she reminds me a bit of early P.J.
Harvey but with a somewhat brighter and more accessible sound. She does an
excellent job of building and releasing tension both in the song itself and
with her guitar playing. Jim Kimberley did an outstanding job on drums and
backing vocals. A number of people made it a point to head over to the merch
table to buy her stuff after the set.

THE VANDALAYS -- A good, solid meat-and-potatoes bar band that kept the
energy level high. They brought a lot of people with them, and they got a
great reception. I found out later that the frontman's day job is in
management with the local phone company (funny; given the band's name, I
would've thought that he would be a latex manufacturer), and that a lot of
the people the band brought were his work subordinates. I told David that
from now on he should guarantee good IPO turnouts by specifically soliciting
bands whose members can order people to attend their shows. Boss or no boss,
though, everyone seemed to enjoy a spirited Vandalays set.

HEATHROW -- Heathrow did one of the best sets at IPO Chicago 2003, and they
came close to last year's level this time around. This Milwaukee four-piece
has a sort of punchy mod feel to their songs, and their songs really hit
home live in a way that they haven't quite duplicated in the studio yet. A
really good set, yet I was disappointed that they didn't do their cover of
Pulp's "We Are the Boyz", which is on the 2003 Heathrow release *The
Listening Class*. Their live take on "We Are the Boyz" was a personal
highlight of IPO Chicago 2003 for me. Milwaukee has a surprisingly large
number of really good power pop bands, and Heathrow is probably my
second-favorite after the Lackloves.

WIPLOT -- Performing a passel of songs from their latest, *Brownie Points
For Heaven*, Wiplot was a great change of pace. They have a definite twangy
stomp to their sound, which led a number of people in the crowd to turn the
set into a hootin', hollerin' hoedown.

ERIC & THE IMPLANTS -- Easily one of the top highlights of IPO to date.
Armed with his trusty sunburst Rickenbacker, the ever-charismatic Eric
Howell and his associates threw some knuckleballs that really brought down
the house. After a very cool new original (name escapes me) and a GBV cover,
Howell trotted out a song he'd written about the attempt to save Louise
Harrison's old house in downstate Benton, Illinois from the wrecker's ball,
on the premise that Louise's younger brother George stayed there for a few
days in 1963 prior to Beatlemania hitting these shores. The song's clever
title, "Disturbance at the Harrison House", is a bit deceiving, since
there's really nothing R.E.M.esque about the song. It's a sincere and
artfully-done homage to the quiet Beatle, complete with Howell's uncanny
mimicry of both Harrison's vocals and his slide technique. "Disturbance at
the Harrison House" morphed into a highly-lysergic version of "Tomorrow
Never Knows", complete with strobe light and a really effective wrinkle -- a
DJ doing scratches on a turntable in lieu of the backwards-tape effects on
the *Revolver* original. It was one of the most innovative attempts to
update a Beatles song that I've ever heard. All in all, a great way to end a
great evening.


Gregory Sager