Friday, May 30, 2008

jeffrey lewis and los campesinos! at the varsity theater

Wednesday night I went to see Jeffrey Lewis and the Jitters and Los Campesinos! at the Varsity. I didn't take a camera along because I wanted to have fun and not worry about getting really great shots and that sort of thing. It seems like a lot of dudes go to shows just to take the best photo possible, so you can search flickr and find plenty of snaps if you feel the blog reader's need for accompanying images. I will also describe the show for you in case you're lazy like me:

The Varsity is this real swanky venue. Don't get me wrong--it's beautiful, it's just really different from Bob's Underground (home of a cute little mouse/a space that also happens to moonlight as a coffee shop) or Gardner lounge, my normal show spots. The ceilings in Gardner are so low Family Unit's juggler couldn't get a proper juggle on (back when they were a full band). What if they had brought along a unicycle?! Tragedy. Well, they'd be golden in the Varsity, where they have real high ceilings, a disco ball over the crowd, and two chandeliers over the stage. I guess what I'm getting at is the difference between what I'm used to in Grinnell and what you'll find at the Varsity is the Varsity is nice. The bar's way out of the way in the back and the room itself is all deep reds the way a classic theater would be. There is even carpet! You'd never have that in Bob's or Gardner--too many stains. Anyhow, similar to both my regular show spots, the Varsity has couches! It's kind of bizarre having fancy armchairs and couches slightly raised and bordering the room, since I was expecting more of a tiled-basement with cigarette burn flame resistant blue 80s sofas, but the lounge area housed lots of adult hipster couples comfortably and chairs around the floor with little cafe tables made a pretty good spot to wait for things to get started. I met Chris there (I'm linking White People Music because evidently I like linking in this post) and he had picked up a sweet Jeffrey Lewis comic already. (I mean, he purchased it. For a fleeting moment I saw the comic on the table and thought Jeffrey Lewis had just left out some comics as reading material. And, while Chris and I agreed that would have been really adorable, we also agreed that would be ridiculous.) So I perused Fuff #3 (the purchased comic) while Chris went on a parking meter mission and we waited for JL and his pals to open.

Jeffrey Lewis is pretty much the sweetest and cutest and most fun ever. His singsong-ery manages to make sad or depressing or kind of awful things really appealing. Maybe appealing isn't the right word, but something like that is. The Jitters were great, too. The girl on mini piano (I think her name was Helen) reminded me of my friend Claire a whole lot because she sort of hunched up her shoulders a little bit while she sang. Mostly she had this specific Claire expression (like she has a funny secret), and on top of that she seemed excited and fun. JL and the Jitters played a few songs and some were fast and some of them were big and some of them were ballads but all of them were great. And there were lots o' videos. I especially liked "The History of Communism: Part Three (Russia)" because Chris and I had just been talking about Russkiland and how crazy it is. I tried to chant "USSR" as they prepared but I think Chris thought I was chanting "USA" because he kept saying things like "Better DEAD than RED." At one point JL played a sweet, simple song about friends and atheism and sort of sad things--it's one of his songs that sounds a little like Kimya Dawson's stuff. I don't know the name of that song or really very many of his songs because I mostly bought my ticket to see Los Campesinos! and so initially Jeffrey Lewis and the Jitters were just an added bonus. (I do know they played "Banned from the Roxy," at least.) It's kind of funny that I hadn't planned to see those kids as much as Los Campesinos! because it turned out I liked them best. I am starting to think that 54% of the time the best band opens.

Maybe it's just because JL and the Jitters opened and they seem so sweet and really excited and earnest about music (and that's probably because JL's songs seem to be more about messages through lyrics rather than sound), but Los Campesinos! sounded just like they do on their recordings, which was good, but they also seemed a little...high school or something? I like their recordings because I like certain aspects of high school mentalities (the pop-y music parts, mostly), but it's also kind of like LC figured out all of the hip things to do in a band (tight t-shirts, violin, glockenspiel) and then put together as many of their friends as they could get away with and then got hyped a lot (Pitchfork) based on their recordings (and probably also because they're from Wales and have nice accents even when they sing) so now hipsters want to see them and so they get to perform. The girls were wearing tights with just the right amount of holes in them and it was way too hot for tights, which always makes me suspicious. They put on a good show, I guess, but I didn't feel like they were really into what they were doing--more like into being rock stars? They definitely throw out a lot of energy, but it seems to be more about showmanship and a punk rock-esque attitude than a real commitment to music. But like I said, I could be over analyzing because it's kind of impossible to be as sweet as JL and the Jitters. Los Campesinos! did start their set with an inter-group call-and-response type count off and I liked that a lot. More people stood up once they started and a few even danced a little (evidently people in MPLS don't really dance at shows?) so that's a plus for LC, too. Oh! and lol, their drummer looked like Minkus from Boy Meets World, but older, shirtless, and, to quote Chris, "buff." I tried to find a good Boy Meets World era picture of the actor but evidently he's on that WB drama One Tree Hill now and the Lee Norris fansite I found requires registration to get to the gallery and that is creepy and further than I'm willing to go to help you figure out that allusion.

I ALMOST FORGOT THE BEST THING: we met the legendary KDIC Flock of Seagulls haircut guy at the show! He's a Grinnell alum and he runs a big music blog so he goes to shows a lot and we saw him between Jeffrey Lewis' set and Los Campesinos!. I recognized him from a Grinnell magazine article/the 80s KDIC staff photo so Chris and I went up to him to confirm his identity. I would link to his fancy blog here but I am afraid he'd find this post and read my review of the show and think Grinnellians are kind of dumb now. I'm not going to tag Los Campesinos! for this post, either, in case they do things like google themselves. I don't want to make them feel bad. . . And now I feel bad. I just remembered one of the LC girls was standing next to me during Jeffrey Lewis' set and when some of the songs would pick up I would dance a lot and she would hipster shuffle a bit and that seemed nice of her, given the lack of dancing in the crowd. I don't mean to be negative because I had a really fun night! It was just different than I expected.

1 comment:

s-lay said...

Ahhhhh Flock of Seagulls guy!!!! So dreamy~