Neko Case

Oh, I love you Joey Burns! You are so unbelievably talented and watching you play is orgasmic. You wear those geeky shirts and pants, unlike those glam rockers with their stupid leather pants. I'm such a sucker for the MIT nerd look. I didn't even know Calexico was opening for Neko tonight. I must say I've only listened to about a half-dozen of their songs and now I'm hooked. I would have paid just to hear them play. Two

Silver Trees is one of my favorite songs and I should shout out to KEXP for introducing me to Calexico and Neko. Damn, there's a lot of great music out there. Now I need to pick on Feist of Wire. They did a great job weaving a variety of their songs together and the aucoustics were perfect. Kudos to the sound folks.

Damn, the fucking dumbest twenty-something girls arrive to sit next to me and ruin the feel. They are decked out in fall dresses and boots that show how hefty their calves are. Good stock if you needed breeders. They proceeded to talk VERY LOUDLY over Claexico's music the ENTIRE TIME!! Any break they had in the vapid conversations about guys and parties was to check their phones for text messages. ARGH! Can't anyone just enjoy being in the NOW!!!! I tried to tune them out but they were so fucking loud! Right next to me. I made sure to cough in their direction every chance I could.

Neko took the stage with her supporting band around 9 pm. The stage design was stupid and reminded my how much I hated Lilith Fair

crap even if I liked the music. Earthy tree and owl sketch image tapestries bordered the stage with a film screen center behind the band. The films would show typical strange David Lynch compositions - pigeons eating, highways, carnival lights, a model building glowing from the inside. I had no idea how they related to the songs except for the tiger and tornado ones.

She came on stage wearing a wonderful red satin silk dress. Comments abound - cougar, lynx, pre-menopause jokes. She was good with the banter. Overall I found the sets too focused on Fox Confessor and Middle Cyclone stuff. I miss the old songs from Furnace Room Lullaby and The Virginian but I guess her younger followers can't enjoy the more classic country elements of her early work :( So sadly the texture and movement between songs seemed monotonistic since she didn't pull from a full range of her work. She did do a nice job pulling in some talents like Joey Burns and Martha Wainwright. Then she had to go and play Don't Forget Me and I just lost it, crying like a stupid idiot all over a lost love. I'm so pathetic sometimes. I sucked it up, lasted for the obligatory encore few songs, none really worthy of returning to stage but overall a good evening. At least the sound was close to perfect. With live performances, ya never know. And it's only three blocks from my home so I can't really complain about lack on great entertainment here in NYC.