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The last couple of times Kurt Vile has played in town coincided with me being out of town; I’d see him and his band The Violators in the summer of 2009 at day three of the Homegrown Psych Fest and was instantly hooked, knowing nothing about him beforehand. He’s got such a free and easy way about how he sings, plays, and constructs his songs. Reading any number of reviews will usually net a few references to Bruce Springsteen or Tom Petty but that’s missing the mark by quite a bit. Sure, Vile doesn’t do anything radical with the song constructs, so he’s definitely closer to 70s FM radio than, say, Stockhausen or Christian Marclay but he’s not trying to put a Southern Gothic touch on the Byrds or putting on a demin vest and talking about wrenching on his hot rod. He’s way more introspective with his outlook, keeping things hazy, murky and open to many interpretations.
With the breezy indie rock kids of Real Estate as part of a shared tour, Vile had the Violators backing him but with a twist…instead of Jesse Turbo playing guitar and sax, he’s got Mary Lattimore playing harp, and nothing for the bottom end as Adam Granduciel played guitar the entire set tonight. Maybe it was the sound mix, but the harp was completely lost in the mix at least where I was standing. I know that Vile had some difficulties getting the right monitor mix, and there was quite a bit of momentum stalling episodes where he’d try to work with the sound man to get it right. Couple that with a few other mechanical setbacks (drummer Mike Zanghi‘s headset fell apart and needed some TLC as he needed it to play along with the pre-recorded pulsating track on “Freak Train,” and Kurt wrestled all night with a mic stand that would not stay propped up to the level he wanted- even a last-minute attempt from Naomi Yang was unsuccessful), and the gig never really caught fire like it could have.
One thing that I absolutely love about Vile’s records but comes at a price in the live setting is his split between full band rockers like “Hunchback” (I forgot to verify this post-show, but my hunch (groan) is that this song is a self-descriptor about his physical playing style) and the delicate numbers like “Unknown.” It’s a gorgeously plaintive song, with Granduciel’s keening guitar tones soaring over the upstrokes of Vile’s acoustic guitar, but the pacing of the show as it lurches between full-on band pounders and stripped back songs suffers as a result. Maybe as his songbook increases in size and scope, he can adopt Neil Young‘s approach and do two sets, one acoustic and one electric. In fact, Shakey is a much better point of reference than the Boss or Petty, especially on the enduringly haunting “Even My Best Friends (Don’t Pass This),” which would fit in like a laser-etched puzzle piece from On The Beach or Tonight’s The Night. Vile continues to expand his vision (check out the sublimely plangent “Losing Momentum (For Jim Jarmusch)”) and I am looking forward to his next release on Matador Records. He was my best musical find of 2009 and I’m eager to see what he does next.
Real Estate seem to be on the upswing, and I know more than a few in the audience were a bit surprised that they weren’t headlining. Personally I knew nothing from them other than the languid and lilting ‘Pool Swimmers’ and I was treated to more of the same. As pleasant as a cool summer breeze as the last of rays of the day set below the water’s horizon. Ideal summer music played by a quartet of fresh-faced kids who look like they just got done with their camp counselor day jobs and now it’s time to play some music for the girls to gently dance to.
Sore Eros opened up the show, and immediately I thought that this is the sort of cloistered pop/psych sound that Wayne Coyne should have been concentrating on after Ronald Jones left The Flaming Lips, rather than running around in hamster balls and getting wholesale price quotes on cubic feet of confetti. Vile is no stranger to this band either, lending his trumpet on a couple of tracks from last year’s Second Chants cd out on SHDWPLY records. Delicate beauty, makes a bird’s egg shell seem like steel and a thistle down scrape like shark skin.
