Concert Review Number 8: Okkervil River

Concert Review
Okkervil River with Damien Jurado
Logan Square Auditorium
September 18, 2007





Why you might ask does daddy need to drive to Chicago to see one of his favorite bands? That is an excellent question and indeed a very sad one that pounds home the point that St. Louis is of course not, and never will bill a first rate city. I mean when an average indie rock band on the Jaguwar label can snub this town for years, then what can we do? What can we say?
Sooooo....you miss some work, you skip some school, you find a place to crash and you disappear for 18-24 hours for a solo road trip to see some good music. I am obsessed by Okkervil River. Will Sheff fascinates and confuses me. He writes some of the darkest most complex songs out right now. So I headed for the Logan Square Auditorium, one of the few venues in Chicago I have not been to. It was a cool venue for something called an “auditorium”. I got to drive up 55 all alone listening to their new CD. Is there anything worse then the drive up 55 to Chicago? It is the ass end drive of the world. Nothing to see, nothing to do...just a strong cross wind over fields of soy and corn. Lousy dirty towns and a Mc Donalds every 10 miles. White trash backwards ass Illinois countryfuck heaven. On the other hand... it is the way to Chicago.

I was heading up to downtown (I like to say that) to rendevous with the Knipstein and the frightening law student Adam Smith and the beautiful and talented Rachel Lauber. We dined at Peace Brewery and met up with young Jon Becker and two friends from school. Much pizza was consumed before hopping on the train and heading a few stops to Logan Square. We could not find the place but I finally asked for directions and was pointed to an innocuous building where we walked through a narrow door and up a set of steps to what appeared to be an old school gym revamped into a place to hold wedding receptions and small concerts.

Damien Jurado opened for them. I was not familiar with this guy prior to the show. I listened to his CD on the way up as well. Kind of a wispy voice with these over raught, heartfelt songs. He came on stage with a amped down lead guitarist and a girl who was percussionist, background singer, keyboardist and sometimes admonisher of the crowd for not paying attention. She was just insufferable and poor Damon who starts with mopey songs...just seemed like he should have a gun in his mouth...a really ugly gun...like a cartoon gun. Anyway the whole thing was surreal and it was so tiring. the show was supposed to start at 8:30 but they moved it back to 9:30 and with how slow and boring and whiny big old Damon was.... well I was just exhausted.

But... he finally got done and there was a brief break, and another Budweiser and I went and looked at the merchandise and their was a cool poster comemorating the show and then Will Sheff and his bad made there way to the front of the gym...because there was no back stage or for that matter even a stage...and they trailed up...took their places, thanked everybody for coming out...and tore into the new CD “Stage Names” with the opening track “Bad Movie”.... and we were off!
Sheff is an ugly man. Thinnish, lank haired bangs that hang over slightly beady pig eyes but...it works. he strums the acoustic guitar...plays with the microphone and rocks...woefully...plaintively...and awesomely. He has a a band full of multi instrumentalists including keyboards, trumpet, percussion, guitars, percussion, bass, percussion and background vocals. He alternated songs from Stage Names with his back catalogue and Stage Names is solid enough to work with. Great songs including ”8 Chinese Brothers” where he uses song names to tell everyone that no one cares...
“Nobody cares about your 97th tear”....the 100th Luftballoon, the fourth time you were a lady, the 51 ways to leave your lover...”.

Brilliant. he just writes great poignant songs and the band just plays so seamlessly with him that it works in beautiful..loud...shrill...brilliant way. (I will need to do a whole blog entry just on the song “”8 Chinese Brothers...look forward to it) The band slowly peels from suits down to t-shirts as they rock on and on into the night. They finally leave the stage at Midnight before the demand of encores...it is odd when there is no back stage... and they go and stand on the side of the stage toweling off....before coming back to rip through a few more songs. The encores were awesome and they finished with “Westfall” which is one of the greatest mentally ill murder songs since...since... Warren Zevon’s “Excitable Boy” at least.
The evil law student was ready to go home and so before the end of “Westfall” I took our little group and got to the back of the gym so we could bail on the last chord. I did not even say goodbye to my son (father of the year award) and then we hightailed it out for the train and back to Division Street. I talked the boys out of a drunken White Castle run and we had one more beer and I crashed on the couch. I want to say... for the record...that 45 (almost 46) year old men should not sleep on couches. I started on the futon but actually found the hug old squisht couch more comfortable. Then up at 6 to breeze back home in time for a 2:30 partner picture in front of the foutains at Kiener Plaza. I looked great.