Friday night at Newport Kentucky's Southgate House I saw Yo La Tengo for the first time and I don't think I've ever seen a more earnest band. Through their nearly-three-hour set, the New Jersey rockers never cracked a smile, even during cheeky covers like "I'm Your Puppet" and Devo's "Beautiful World." This is a band that loves rock&roll and tends to forget that a club full of people is watching them. At several points, I'm not certain guitarist Ira Kaplan knew anyone else was in the room--not the fans, not his bandmates--as he seemed to commune with his guitar. Kaplan makes seemless moves from fuzzy, feedback-drenched solos to 60s garage pop dittys to ambient background noise that begs audience members to strike up a mid-show conversation. In short, a great, great show.
The trio had miscelaneous players augmenting their usually stripped-down sound and the effect was a layered drone (through most of the set, at least three electric guitars were blaring). Without explanation (and, of course, without any acknowledgment of the absurdity), Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen backed up the band as a proficient second drummer. At several points, the band left the stage while Armisen did a little improv. Kaplan introduced a camoflauge-and-fake-beard clad Armisen as Saddam Hussein and Armisen inexplicably adopted a British accent and played Hussein as an aspiring punk musician, espousing Stiff Little Fingers and "your Ramones." Bizarre. Before the show, I ran into Armisen and told him I liked his stuff on SNL. He pointed at my (admittedly nerdy) glasses, those of my friend Jay, and then his own, and said: "Nerds back in school, right?" And with a macho fist pump to his chest, left us with the phrase "full effect." A fine evening.
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