As long-time readers of my blog now, Scotland’s incredible TRASHCAN SINATRAS are one of my all-time favorite bands. Thus, when I heard that they were coming back to tour the U.S. to promote the release of their latest album In the Music and that they would be playing one of the best-sounding venues I’ve ever been to, World Cafe Live, I was stoked. Granted, they played the smaller upstairs room, though the acoustics are comparable.
Opening with “Wild Mountainside”, a beautiful 2006 single that was performed because it reminded them of home and they were almost done with the tour, they focused heavily on material from In the Music, 2004’s career zenith Weightlifting and 1993’s I’ve Seen Everything. Thus, they all but ignored their 1990 debut Cake and their seriously underrated third album, 1996’s A Happy Pocket with the exception of “Obscurity Knocks” (their still amazing-sounding first single) and “How Can I Apply…?”, respectively.
Regardless, with material this strong and in an amazing-sounding venue that’s absolutely perfect for them, it was hard for me to complain. Additionally, a brand new song called “I See the Moon” was performed along with “Astronomy”, a song that was only on the Japanese CD release of In the Music. Singer FRANK READER incorporated some lyrics to GEORGE HARRISON‘s “My Sweet Lord” into current single “Prisons”, though I’m still wondering why they didn’t play “Should I Pray”, my favorite song on In the Music.
You can see the setlist here.
Openers THE CANDLES were OK, but I felt that while they were going for early WILCO, THE JAYHAWKS or SON VOLT style alt-country, they ended up somewhere near COUNTING CROWS. They weren’t bad, but perhaps more harmonies (one thing most of the above bands excel at and they lacked) and more memorable material could make them contenders.
