Heartburn: I have it tonight, and it's grinding my innards into gut-mulch. Having forgotten my obligatory roll of generic one-pop chewable tablets, I can do little but shuffle over to the drinking fountain every time it feels like the devil shot a load down my throat. My only comfort is that tonight I finally get to witness firsthand the reason people go ‘Coo-coo’ for Broken Social Scene and Yo La Tengo. Clarification: For the record, I didn't go to the show thinking my appreciation for Yo La Tengo would be bolstered by a forehead-slapping revelation. YLT boast strong studio recordings; from my experience you don't normally hear people say Yo La Tengo is one of those bands you have to see live to fully grasp. But that's exactly what occurred, and with that I became much more of an authority on a band I'd never listened to as much as, say, my go-to artists. It also didn't hurt when, a few days later, a co-worker slyly slid his i-Pod my way with instructions to listen to Painful, particularly "Double Dare." Where the F-plus has this album been my whole life?
It's funny, then, that when I first walked into the Cornell auditorium I saw Yo La Tengo from a distance and dismissed them as a local opener. "There's no WAY YLT's opening this show," I thought as red ribbons of slinky noise darted into my ears. "There's no way some wunderkind Canadian outfit could leap-frog one of indie-rock's most seminal bands after three proper albums... is there?"
Is there? Well yes; Yo La Tengo started playing at 7 PM, and as a result, I not only missed the first few minutes of their set but also disregarded them completely for at least five minutes. Once I realized I'd pooh-pooh'd the legendary trio, all I could do was make my way to the stage as if I'd known it was them all along (as opposed to hitting myself in the head and yelling "I'm so STUPID" circa Chris Farley). It didn't take long for Ira Kaplan to render his Jewish Jimi Hendrix persona more accurately than I'd ever imagined. On this particular Shabbos, Kaplan displayed a magical connection to his guitar and bandmates, groping the former like a blind man feeling up a staircase rail and synchronizing with the latter like two tapes on two decks played at the same time on two identical stereo systems. I'm struggling to remember being this Won Over by a live act I already had a healthy respect for... Bahaus reunion? Nah... Robyn Hitchcock's acoustic set @ Bumbershoot ‘04? Negatory. Corey Feldman live at (since burned-down) Ichabod's North in Spokane, Washington? Pfft; looks like we have a winner!
Watching Yo La Tengo is a lot like taking in a Sonic Youth or Stephen Malkmus show because it ALL starts with the bass player, in this case James McNew. If McNew didn't McSlang big ‘n’ tasty bass lines faster than an auctioneer pitching out bid figures, Kaplan wouldn't have the freedom to hunker over his guitar and bend over at the waist, lunging potently as if trying to nestle something -- a tiny kitten? -- between his legs. It was entrancing, abrasive and, above all else, impossible to turn away from. What's more, if you've been paying any attention AT ALL to the progression of underground rock over, say, the last 20 years, Yo La Tengo will reach -- and tickle profusely -- one of your pressure points. As they always have on their multi-tiered albums, YLT Go There; it doesn't matter where There is because the trio covers so much ground, they inevitably stumble upon nearly every genre imaginable. Everyone's happy. I dug the drawn-out, tension-building lessons in restraint (basically Youth's "Rain on Tin," Tengo-fied) and the skin-scratching noise-noise; my wife dug the bouncy, Spoon-y piano-driven ditties with Pop stenciled all over them.
Now that I'm preparing to jump into the Broken Social Scene portion of this review, I direct you to the first sentence of the preceding paragraph -- times 10 -- because BSS are one of the most bass-driven bands I've ever heard outside of hip-hop and dub persuasions. The fact that three guitarists were running around almost seemed immaterial compared to the band's obvious central theme of tub-chubby basslines that flow like a harpoon from start to finish. Kevin Drew also surprised me with his pipes, singing lead on every song and layin' it down loud and proud like Wayne Coyne would if he could actually pull his upper-register studio vocals off in a live setting. As a unit -- a six-man unit minus Feist, Emily Haines and plenty of others, btw -- the technical abilities of the BSS unit could not be called into question.
I can't, however, say the same about the ebb and flow of their setlist, which didn't change a fookin' bit until the last song. I never realized how easily their songs bleed into one another, like an hour-long version of "Stars and Sons" (though they didn't play that numba, far as I could tell), and it took away from the show. Shame is, with a more effectively chosen setlist -- not to mention the full, swollen BSS lineup rather than the Polyphonic Spree-esque 'lite' version -- this could have been a much more explosive set. As impressive as Broken Social Scene were initially, I found myself leaning over to a companion and uttering a phrase I only reserve for the most frigid acts: "I'm ready when you are."
Need I say more?
