Little Lies and Massive Dreams

My name is Bear. I play in a band called Talking About Commas and live and work in Providence, RI. I like music.
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May 14, 2007

The Slip: 2 Nights at The Indy



The Slip threw down for 2 nights at SF's the Independent on April 27th and 28th. New tunes old tunes, first time covers, horns, steel drums, holy fuck they had it all. It would take me too long to review such a stellar 2 night stand so here are the set lists. If you dont know the songs than too bad for you!

Night 1

1: The Landing^ > Children of December^, Even Rats, There's A Lie, The Shouters, Weight of Solomon, Broke the Promised Land, Black Telephone

2: intro > The Soft Machine, If One of Us Should Fall^, Get Me With Fuji, Wine and White Soda, Poor Boy >Long Way to the Top > Poor Boy, Drown in My Own Tears*^, Steel Drum Zion**^

E: Heartbreaker***

^ w/ horns. Rob on Trombone and Kasey on tenor sax (from Disappear Incompletely). * Ray Charles cover ** Brad on drumkit, Andrew on steel drum, Marc on guitar. basically a jam but there were lots of "Zion" teases. *** Led Zeppelin cover

Night 2
I: Living Loving Maid*, Airplane/Primitive, Chasing Rabbits, There's A Lie, Cowboy Up, Suffocation Keep,Gaunte Debutante

II: All I Saw Was You , Portrait of a Scientist as a Young Man, Anything You Want** > Sometimes True To Nothing, I Hate Love, Ooh Belle, Even Rats

E: Steel Drum Zion jam***, Life in Disguise

* Led Zeppelin cover, completes the seque from the end of last night's Heartbreaker. ** Spoon cover. *** w/ all members of Holy Fuck

Bright Eyes @ the Greek Theatre 5.4.07



Conor Oberst has my dream job. Not only does he have complete control of his art, but he has the means to recruit brilliant musicians (Emmylou Harris, Jim James, M. Ward, Jenny Lewis, Gillian Welch to name a few) to realize it. Last Friday he and his friends held a neo-art-folk summit at the classic Greek Theater in Berkeley. On the bill with him was a nice dip in the reverb sea with My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and a duo set from the devilishly angelic Gillian Welch and the incomparable David Rawlins.

Bright Eyes’ set started with the same psychic/orchestral sample that starts their new album Cassadaga (which is a gem BTW) while the stage swirled with the real time effects of a guy behind an overhead projector. Throughout the show this artist scribbled, painted and de-petaled flowers on an overhead projector that displayed images as big as the Greek’s massive stage. This was very original in my opinion but also very distracting at times.

Conor led his 12-piece ensemble through most of Cassadaga’s songs while only touching on 2 other albums from his vast repertoire (annoyingly but understandably given most of the musicians on stage were the ones that sessioned for Cassadaga). Highlights included a reworked Calypso infused version of “First Day of My Life” from 2005's I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and a nice rocking but definitely acoustic take on the once computerized “I Believe in Symmetry” (off of Wide Awake’s fraternal twin Digital Ash in a Digital Urn).

Due to time constraint’s Bright Eyes played only a 50 minute set (Conor even scathed “Apparently the stage turns into a pumpkin at a certain time so we have to speed things up”) before squeezing in an all-star 3 song encore (not including the “Happy Birthday” singalong to a friend). It started with Jim James singing lead on John Prine’s classic “All the Best”. Then came a great version of Gillian’s “Look at Miss Ohio” followed by a error filled but genuine “At the Bottom of Everything” to close down the night.

The MVP of the night goes to Gillian Welch and David Rawlins whose set captivated the 2/3 capacity crowd. Songs like “Orphan Girl” and a steam engine fueled cover of Johnny Cash’s “Jackson” prove that sometimes 2 can be better than 12.

Bright Eyes set: Clairaudients, Hot Knives, Middleman, First Day of My Life, Make a Plan to Love Me, Classic Cars, No One Would Riot For Less, Cleanse Song, I Believe in Symmetry

E: All the Best, Happy Birthday, Look at Miss Ohio, At the Bottom of Everything


Gillian and Dave: Orphan Girl, Elvis Presley Blues, My First Lover, No One Knows My Name, Do it Anyway?, I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll, One Job, Revelator, By the Mark, Jackson


Jim James: Anytime, Dancehalls, Hopefully, I Will be There when you Die, X-mas Curtain, Gideon, ?, Bermuda Highway, ?