I got the opportunity to see War on Drugs guitarist and recent Matador acquisition Kurt Vile on the final date of his American tour. I turned the following in to another local blog but was horrendously late in doing so. I still find this review relevant to anyone curious about Vile, who has become one of my favorite new finds of 2009. So here are my thoughts on last week’s Black Cat show.
Photo from the Matador Records website
Last time Kurt Vile came to DC, he came alone. The young Philly native with the mop of shaggy hair took a seat in a corner of a dark room and quietly altered the landscape of the Velvet Lounge. Because while his distortion pedals and preternaturally road weary voice seemed at home in such a dark corner, the pretty guitar strumming lifted the room into his psychedelic haze. It was a fantastic out of body experience. However, one gets the sense that Vile is too prolific a songwriter with too broad a range to limit himself solely to lo-fi self-recordings. The show at the Black Cat showed his ability to branch out, while keeping his sensibilities for eliciting a dark transcendence intact.
He started the show much as we’d remembered him: alone with his guitar and his cryptic lyrics. Then his hired guns, The Violators took the stage and fleshed out that dirty/beautiful sound with the sludgy album opener “Hunchback.” It didn’t change the sound so much as amplify it and give it texture. This worked wonderfully for the songs from last month’s Matador debut Childish Prodigy. Even songs like “Dead Alive” that only almost work on the album sounded much tighter and fuller in a live setting and songs like “Freak Train,” with its frenzied saxophone solo sounded even better. The audience, which consisted primarily of notable DC music names and UMD students that pay more attention to PostRock than Pitchfork, did not hesitate to congratulate the singer at every turn.
This is not to say that the show was flawless. Sometimes, Vile’s added guttural roars were so perfectly placed that they brought shivers through the room. Sometimes they seemed unnecessary. The added depth that the Violators created for the outright rockers seemed like overkill on songs like the spacey “Breathin’ Out” from his previous work Constant Hitmaker. Sometimes those kids REALLY wanted to engage Vile in conversation and for some reason, he usually obliged. But perfection isn’t really a part of Vile’s appeal. His appeal is taking those ugly sludgy notes and turning them into something impressive. It’s a trick his classic rock idols have been doing for decades and he seems primed to eventually become a part of that pantheon. Just as he announced with pride that he learned some of his guitar tricks from Steve Forbert, announcing proudly, “I was there!” it doesn’t seem strange that one day some of us will say the same thing. Everyone in the room had a look on their face after he finished with rarity “My Best Friends (Don’t Even Pass This)” that said, “That just happened. I saw Kurt Vile at the Black Cat touring off of Childish Prodigy. I was there. “
Kurt Vile :: Overnite Religion
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