Top musical moments of 2009
December 31, 2009 – 8:12 pmWith life and law school being out of control crazy, I didn’t quite manage to collect ten top albums, or ten top concerts. So what I have collected here are my top musical moments of 2009. This is the music that kept me sane during an insane year:
11. Dirty Projectors at Pritzker Pavilion / Bitte Orca / Knotty Pine
When Medina’s mom was in town, we were looking for things to do that she might enjoy. We saw that there was a free concert at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. I didn’t know much about the Dirty Projecters, but I bought their new album, Bitte Orca, and decided pretty quickly that my mother in-law would probably not like it very much. We headed down that way anyhow, and about two minutes into the first song, she got up to go see the rest of the park. My wife hung in there for a couple of songs, then went to find her mom.
I enjoyed the show. And the more I listened to it, I came to really enjoy the album as well. Especially the track “Stillness is the Move.” It’s what Mariah Carey would sound like if she weren’t awful. I also found and really enjoyed a track with them and David Byrne on the Dark Was The Night comp. “Knotty Pine” combines the weird but good harmonies of the Dirty Projectors with Byrne’s increasingly enjoyable voice in fun and interesting ways.
This band doesn’t fit well in with all of my other musical interests, but I found myself coming back to their material over and over. They were the surprise hit of the year!
10. Matt & Kim at Pitchfork / Grand
We were exhausted and on our way to the bike racks to start our trip home when the sound of Matt & Kim rocking the side-stage caught my attention. I hadn’t heard anything from them prior to Pitchfork, and hadn’t planned on catching their set. But they were absolutely tearing it up as we unlocked our bikes and extricated them from the jammed racks. Theirs was the first album I obtained after Pitchfork, and it has stayed in heavy rotation ever since.
9. Frightened Rabbit at Pitchfork
As with many of my recent musical finds, I heard about these guys on Sound Opinions. Jim and Greg were particularly effusive about this band, so I gave them a shot. Their album was great. Their heavy Scottish brogues were a nice energetic counterpoint to the equally heavily accented voice of Glen Hansard of Once, the Frames, and The Swell Season, who was also in heavy rotation.
Frightened Rabbit’s set at Pitchfork was a welcome guitar-heavy, straightforward rock, break from the otherwise synth-heavy lineup. The songs from the album sounded surprisingly great in the bright sunshine of Union Park.
8. Monsters of Folk – s/t, My Morning Jacket – iTunes Live from Las Vegas At The Palms – EP
With My Morning Jacket’s disappointing release last year, I was badly in need of a Jim James fix this year. These two releases fit the bill nicely. The Monsters of Folk album has a couple of slow points, especially when Conor Oberst took the lead, but the combination of James, M. Ward and a bunch of really catchy songs made this one of my favorites of the year.
The MMJ iTunes EP was exactly what I needed to cleanse my palate of the deeply dissatisfying Evil Urges from 2008. This little jaunt brought back the reverb, and the mostly previously-released songs have renewed life. This is what I love about MMJ: the big, big sound.
7. Ben Sollee – Pedaling against Poverty videos
http://pedalingagainstpoverty.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html
It’s really sad that I didn’t get onboard the Sollee fan train until I left Kentucky. According to my friend Mike, Ben made several appearances with his cello at the weekly Bluegrass jam session I attended in Louisville. I had seen him there, but didn’t know who he was.
This year, I happened to catch wind of Ben’s planned trek by bike to Bonnaroo. I followed the videos as they were posted, and thoroughly enjoyed every one. I also bought Ben’s album Learning To Bend and enjoyed that as well. He’s a Ky boy through and through, and he makes beautiful music. Add the fact that he toured with his cello strapped to his bike, and of course I loved it.
6. Metric – Fantasies / St. Vincent – Actor / Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career
It’s probably unfair to lump these three female-fronted groups and albums into one entry, but they all hit the same spot for me where mood was concerned. They were the upbeat, grooving, happy songs that I found myself turning to over and over as the stress of the year reached one of its many peaks.
5. Neko Case at Lollapalooza / Middle Cyclone
Neko has completely won me over. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood put the hooks in, and Middle Cyclone sealed the deal. Amazing songs, amazing music, and now that I’ve seen her live, I can add great concerts to that list. She had been on the road with this particular band for quite a while, and was ending the tour at Lollapalooza. They were tight as could be, and the songs gained even more life on stage. There was a decently large crowd for Neko at Lolla, but she made it feel like an intimate club show.
4. Flaming Lips at Pitchfork
I’ve been a big Flaming Lips fan for many years now. They were one of the few on my list of bands I wanted to, but had not yet seen live. They were the reason we decided to go ahead and buy Pitchfork tickets. They did not disappoint. It was a huge show, with all the spectacle and grandeur that I expected. It was a great end to a great weekend.
3. The Decemberists – Hazards of love
This is why I love the Decemberists. An epic album with dense, narrative lyrics, and a big guitar sound. “The Rake’s Song” is worth the price of admission alone: the narrator marries young, has several children, his wife dies in childbirth, he kills the children, and he lives the remainder of his life guilt-free. What’s not to love about a song like that?
The female guest stars on this album nearly steal the show. Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark and My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden are fantastic, especially on “The Wanting Comes in Waves.”
I would add their beginning-to-end performance of this album from Lollapalooza to this entry, but we were taking a food break during their set, and didn’t actually see any of it. We heard it drifting over the food trailers, but by the time we scarffed-down our festival faire, they were done. It did sound good.
2. Fleet Foxes at Lollapalooza
The Fleet Foxes topped my best-album list last year, and they were the number one reason we bit the bullet and bought Lollapalooza tickets this year. I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hear them live. They played early in the day on Friday, and on Friday it rained. Hard. The crowd was soaked but excited. The band took the stage and the umbrellas went down, clearing the view for the people in the back.
The band took the stage and the clouds parted, sun shining through. Well, not really. It actually rained the whole time, but I didn’t even notice, because the Fleet Foxes were majestic. Perfect harmonies, beautiful songs, just what I wanted. I closed my eyes, forgot completely about my soaked clothes, and sang along. Perfect.
1. Band of Horses at Lollapalooza
I loved Band of Horses long before Lollapalooza. Their two albums are both in very heavy rotation at all times, and are the kind of albums (my favorites) that I listen to start-to finish without skipping a track. I hadn’t seen them live, so next to fleet foxes, this was the most anticipated set of the festival for me. I had no idea how great it would be.
There are times when the circumstances all come together to elevate a show from good to great. This was one of those times.
The two stages at the north end of Grant park were set apart by a good distance, but were facing each other almost directly. The acts on the two stages were staggered one after another so that when one act finished on one stage, the next was ready to start on the other. This set-up worked great all weekend, with every band staying close to their allotted time.
Things fell apart a little on the last night of the festival, but the result was glorious. Lou Reed, who may be an absolute and undeniable musical genius, stunk it up at Lollapalooza. We didn’t hear the whole thing, but the end was terrible. 20 minutes of meandering sax solo ran nearly 20 minutes into Band of Horses’ time. BoH waited patiently in the wings while the old man flailed on the other side of the field. Eventually, he stopped.
Band of Horses finally went on, and it was fantastic. The songs came alive and the crowd came alive. All of that pent-up energy from waiting for Reed to get off stage exploded with the first chord of the first song. The energy stayed high throughout the set, and the band was tight. They ripped through the remainder of their scheduled time.
The problem with BoH being bumped late was that the band playing next on the stage that Reed all to recently left was Jane’s Addiction, fronted by the guy who started, and still kind of runs Lollapalooza: Perry Farrell.
Farrell had a big, orchestrated plan for the start of his set. He had a helicopter flying over the crowd, intro music and a light show. The problem with big, orchestrated starts is that they are hard to stop, or even postpone. So while BoH was still in the middle of their hour of time, the show at the other end started.
What made this musical moment magical was what happened next: Band of Horses kept playing. Lead man Ben Bridwell asked the crowd: “Should we blow that shit out?” The crowd responded with a resounding “Yes!!!” Blow it out they did. They kept playing and playing, the crowd getting more excited with every additional song. Bridwell stepped down into the crowd, which was surging to the front to meet him. They played and played until they were ready to leave, and not a minute earlier.
It was an amazing end to a great festival. We walked out the gate while Jane’s Addiction limped through the rest of their obnoxious set. They may have been good that night, but the last memory I wanted to keep of Lollapalooza was the Band of Horses, kicking ass and taking names.
