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Concert Report: Smog, Will Oldham, Winfred E. Eye, Jim Yoshii Pile-Up

I missed going to see Smog last time, and felt a little silly afterwards, so I decided I needed to go to this show. I convinced a friend from work to go and was looking forward to a decent show. Unfortunately, this show was on a Thursday after a long work week and not much sleep for several days. We got up to the city right before show time, and both of us were tired. I had seen The Jim Yoshii Pile-Up at the Mountain Goats show last year, and didn't really care for them, so we went in the back and sat and chatted and watched people play pool for a while. Next up was Winfred E. Eye, which we couldn't really hear from the back. We went out front for their last few songs, and it was OK. The singer's voice was an excessively gravelly blues-style thing, which wasn't entirely convincing to me. It sort of sounded like a dying frog. It started to grow on me a little bit, but as I said, I wasn't entirely convinced. One guy in the band played a strange wind instrument metal rectangular box with a slide on one side that was pretty cool. Not sure what it was.

Next up was Will Oldham, filling in for Neil Michael Hagerty, who couldn't make the show due to a "family tragedy". He was a goofy looking old guy, doing his set with just his guitar. Not sure why that took so long to set up for, but that might have been the tiredness making it seem like so long. The coolest thing during his set to me was the acapella intro to a song he sang as a tribute to Mr. Hagerty. The song was an appropriately sad-sounding piece, but the back of the bar was laughing and talking and clinking their glasses as it went on, which seemed really innappropriate. But by the end of that part of the song, the whole bar had become quiet, letting the somber tone of the song spread all around. I was impressed, both by the crowd and the performer getting this to happen. Overall, though, I think I would have enjoyed his performance a lot more if I hadn't been so tired. I'd like to hear some of his recorded stuff - his songs seemed interesting.

Finally, around 12:30 or so, Smog came on. It was Bill, another guitar player, a drummer, and a violin player. He played a bunch of songs I knew, especially off of "Knock, Knock" but they sounded very different because of the instrumentation. It was cool! The mix was actually decent so his voice came through really well on most of the songs. The violin player was impressive, going all out for several of the songs - I hope she is somehow carpal-tunnel-syndrome-proof.

Anyways, the show was nice, and I managed to stand up the whole time despite being ready for sleep. And now I've seen almost all of my favorite bands in concert. Yay.