CONCERT REVIEW: Yo La Tengo / Superchunk , Los Angeles
- Steve Kandell
I felt like I had won a contest, actually. Remember when MTV did things like awarding a lucky viewer a brand new pink house in Indiana and then having John Cougar Mellencamp play all day in the backyard? Sort of like that, but in a completely different sense. At one point about halfway through Yo La Tengo's short but amazing set at Los Angeles' beautiful El Rey Theater on Tuesday night and halfway through my fourth free Jack and Coke, a truly stunning thought consumed me: Superchunk was still to come, and I wasn't even supposed to be seeing any of this.
The event was the invite-only premiere party for the fourth season of HBO's "Mr. Show with Bob and David," a big bucks industry shindig that I, quite frankly, had no legitimate claim to be attending as I have nothing to do with either HBO or "Mr. Show with Bob and David." A friend of a friend's coworker, that sort of thing. Had I not gotten a pass, I would have been just as incensed as the rest of the indie rock community, excluded from seeing their heroes Yo La Tengo and Superchunk play while a crowd full of yammering, unappreciative suits and celebrities stands around trying to pitch sitcoms over the din.
But being on the business side of the velvet rope for once, I had no complaint. Apologies to my girlfriend for having to listen me rant about standing on the sushi line between Laura from Superchunk and Michael McKean of Spinal Tap fame. Great sushi. And did I mention the open bar? But the point of the evening was not to fight Janeane Garafalo and Ben Stiller for space in the crowded smoking section - actually a comically small portion of sidewalk chained off for us carbon monoxide-spewing heathens - although though one could do worse than that for sport. The point was the rock.
The season premiere of "Mr. Show" was introduced by its stars and the evening's hosts, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, whose exquisite taste in potty humor is bested only by their taste in music. The show was screened, it was pretty funny, hit some slow stretches - but who gives a shit, I'm not reviewing premium cable sketch comedy here. About a half an hour after the big TV screen disappeared, along with the catering tables, Hoboken's own Yo La Tengo took the stage.
Several dozen guests were gathered at the foot of the stage, leaving the bulk of the party to continue oblivious. My friend leaned over and sneered that the place would be pretty much cleared out by the time Superchunk started playing. It was a school night, after all. I nodded, hoping only that the talking of the partygoers wouldn't drown out the music. For once, such cynicism proved thoroughly ungrounded. Yo La Tengo opened, appropriately enough, with "Sugarcube," the video for which featured our evening's gracious hosts Bob and David training the low-key Tengos how to be more "rock" in their rock videos. I turned around and noticed that the entire theater was facing forward and paying rapt attention. Not a peep could be heard during the quiet keyboard intro to "Autumn Sweater." The forty-five-or-so minute set included inspired versions of such hits (is that the right word?) as "From a Motel 6," "Big Day Coming," and "Tom Courtenay," which was particularly phenomenal.
As in any Yo La Tengo show, the three members constantly switched roles. Rock critic-turned-rock star Ira Kaplan went from guitar to keyboards while massive bassist/keyboardist James McNew assumed guitar or percussion responsibilities, even taking vocals for two songs. Georgia Hubley mostly stayed behind her drum kit and added her ethereal vocals to her husband Ira's slightly nasal ones, wearing a striped short-sleeved button down shirt that looked exactly like the one all the Beach Boys wear on the cover of this live album I have from 1966. By the time they finished their devastating version of I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One's epic "Deeper Into Movies," the El Rey did not feel like the site of a party full of jaded show biz types. It felt exactly like a rock show.
Difficult to comprehend was that this was merely the opening act. With the possible exception of Fugazi, no band better typifies indie rock integrity than veteran North Carolina four-piece Superchunk, and the ugly (longtime, unfounced) rumor was that they were getting ready to call it a career. This added a sense of urgency to the festivities,at least to those of us who care far too much about such matters. After an intermission just long enough for sufficient trips to the men's room, the smoking pen, and the bar, the forever twenty-five Mac McCaughan and the rest of his band hit the stage with "European Medicine" from the last (but hopefully not last) Superchunk album Indoor Living.. With wristband and wife-beater-wearing bassist Laura Ballance doing her requisite nonstop bouncing stage left, and the rest of the band tearing through songs old and new, Superchunk did not look like the grizzled old-timers they are, and they absolutely did not look like a band with nothing left to offer or nothing left to gain by continuing to play together. By the time the hyperkinetic "Skip Steps 1 &3" was through, the whole theater was charged, and my friend's prophecy of the premature exodus could not have been farther from the truth. The place was packed. Perennial favorites like "Package Thief" and "Driveway to Driveway" were mixed with newer songs like "Watery Hands" and "Song for Marion Brown," with its faux-"Baba O'Riley" coda.
Any fears that the kids from Chapel Hill might tone things down a notch for a cushy gig such as this proved as baseless as the concerns about the crowd's potential for mass apathy. In fact, having seen the band exactly a year earlier in the same venue, I can say that this show was probably better, and no shorter than the legitimate tour stop. The band left after "The First Part" and a blistering "Hyper Enough," but not for very long. Superchunk returned moments later with Yo La Tengo for an all-star jam that put shame to the overcrowded and overtired Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finales. The first song by Supertengo/Yo La Chunk was none other than Peter Frampton's Big Rock Classic "Show Me the Way," with Georgia singing the trademark voice box/wah-wah guitar line and Ira reading lyrics off notebook paper while Mac spun around like a maniac and nearly knocked everyone else off the stage. The capper was Superchunk's 1990 classic self-employment anthem "Slack Motherfucker," sung convincingly by the band's shirtless friend Phil, who slithered and preened like the winner of a "Be Iggy Pop for Four Minutes" contest. When it all came to a crashing end with David Cross diving into the grateful crowd, the lights came back up, and everyone in attendance struggled to regain their bearings. I'd say we all got our money's worth but no one paid. Except HBO.
On line at the bar before Superchunk's set, a guy standing next to me shook his head and smiled, wide-eyed and red-faced. "Do you believe this shit?" he asked me. "This is indie rock heaven."
"You don't work for the show or anything, do you?"
"Fuck no." He went on the gleefully explain: friend of someone he smoked out's friend. "This is unbelievable," he said as the bartender handed him three free drinks.
God bless our entertainment industry.
