John Vanderslice & St. Vincent @ Kilby Court (SLC, UT)
Posted by Pablo in Concert Reviews, The Yellow StereoMan, I meant to write this a week ago, but alas, finals are upon me, looming large and threatening my way of life… but, now that my research paper on Don Quijote is done, I have time to write a little about music again! So now, for a little concert reviewage, a week later. I totally forgot my camera, but I found a few pics of the show on In House With Jeremy Peterson’s blog. Many thanks to him for taking the pics and sharing them with the world!
Last Monday night I went to Salt Lake City to see John Vanderslice play at Kilby Court, and it was worth the small trip. Opening for him was St. Vincent, Texas singer-songwriter guitar genius Annie Clark. I’d never heard her music before, but in the middle of her first song, when she was going nuts on her guitar, stomping a beat, and singing at the same time, I was hooked. Her music alternated between mellow folk and manic fun, and every minute was enjoyable. Seriously, if you haven’t listened to her yet, do yourself a favor and read Paul’s post on her and head over to her myspace. I think most everyone there was quite impressed, and I can say she’ll be selling at least one more copy of her debut album come July.
St. Vincent – “Paris is Burning”
Of course, even an amazing opening act doesn’t take away from the excitement for the main attraction. On this tour, John decided to tour as a duo, and his drummer, Dave Douglas, was amazing, taking drum, bass pedal, and keyboard duty- at the same freakin’ time! They played an assortment of tracks from all of Vanderslice’s discography, some of them getting energetic electric remakes on stage. The two of them created a full enough sound that if you couldn’t see the stage you would have thought there was a full band up there. On top of them music, John Vanderslice turned out to be quite a funny guy. He even gave donuts to the people in the front row and then played a song to repent for having bought them at Walmart. There was a lot of audience participation as well- an audience member was able to come on stage sing “Radiant With Terror,” complete with Vanderslice coaching him on the ending and making him do it again. St. Vincent came out for an acoustic, mic-less duet (the place is small enough to make that possible), but the icing on the cake was the acoustic sing-along of “Me and My 424.” John came out into the middle of the audience, told us to sing along and harmonize, and played the song right there in the middle of the crowd… it was like a campfire sing-along about being in love with a four-track. Everyone left the show with a big smile on their face, and I added John Vanderslice on my list of “see him again soon” acts…
Rather than just give you a track, I thought I’d guide you over to a great recording of a live show he has posted up on his page. Go ahead, just download it. You know you want to…
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these pictures are bugging me for something reason. Like they were resized very badly. Anyways, nice review though Pablo. I really want to see Annie in concert now after listening to that new track of hers.
I’ve never really been much of a Vanderslice fan, but his interviews are great and i love how much he supports free music.
Hey, I went to this show, too. I did a write up on it for The College Times at UVSC. It was an excellent show.
I never knew there was a blog that ever covered shows going on in SLC. Do you live in the area, or where you just in the area at the time?
I go to BYU, the other guys on the blog are down South, but I’m representing Utah… I grew up in Northern California and Arizona though…
Love to see some John Vanderslice love. A very talented, underrated musician.