The Spin

The good, the bad and the Rufus If you were looking for soothing tunes and an older crowd Tuesday night, The Ryman fulfilled all those fantasies and more. We missed openers A Fine Frenzy, so we polled some nearby attendees who happily informed us that they were “pretty good” and “they sucked.” But soon enough, Neko Case took the stage with her cascading red hair, illuminating the dark venue. Case’s sharp voice cut through the crowd immediately, and everything got all church-service silent. Fans mouthed lyrics under their breath, afraid to destroy the eerie stillness of the room. Case and her backup vocalist Kelly Hogan blended their voices with chilling accuracy, breezing through songs off Blacklisted and Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, their alt-country harmonies twisting with the bleakness of their hopeless tales. It was all pretty sadpants until, before ending with “John Saw That Number,” Case and Hogan joked, “We’re trying to be cool, but we’re waiting for Rufus Wainwright. At the Ryman.” Giggle, twirl. Then Wainwright took the stage in true star style, bounding in to deafening applause minutes after his band started playing. If his sharp looks weren’t enough to captivate, his brightly colored, bejeweled striped suit, which coordinated with the band’s ensemble, was. Theatrically, he delivered: he made multiple costume changes, dressed in drag and did a choreographed dance routine in front of a black-and-white American flag—the stripes, he said, representing the bad in the world and the bejeweled stars representing the good. And his nasally belting seemed at home in The Ryman, though after the fourth song in a two-set list of songs The Spin didn’t know, his crooning started to kinda all sound the same. In fact, the entire performance felt like one long-ass slow musical, with banter and a few rock gems breaking it up. It wasn’t until an old favorite, “The Art Teacher,” that people stirred with recognition. The show wasn’t a total bust, though—Wainwright’s constant commentary kept us entertained. His charming, Ken-doll features brightened as he imagined the girls in the front row were “virgins guarding the temple of Rufus,” and then again when he covered two Judy Garland songs. For “Between My Legs,” a sharply dressed Nashvillian hopped onstage to deliver the spoken-word portion of the song, a spot he won as part of a YouTube contest. The highlight of the night was a soft bit though, when Wainright shed the microphone and tested the amazing acoustics with an old Irish folk song. His heartfelt performance damn near overshadowed the fact that he was wearing lederhosen.

Buzzfest

We showed up Friday night at Mercy just in time to catch the end of new teen buzz-band The Turf. They were a little dancier than we expected, but impressive nonetheless, though we’ll reserve judgment till we’ve heard more than a song-and-a-half. As the youngsters scampered offstage, we saw a crew of nubile young things hitting the stairs and heading into the night—presumably to drink 40s under a bridge or in someone’s basement. That’s what high school kids do, right? With some of The Turf’s young fanbase hitting the road, the place cleared out a bit, leaving a contingent of local show regulars. At one point, we looked around and felt like over half the people out on the balcony had guest-listed it up. The fact that The Sleep Study boasted local favorites Rollum Haas and Bingham Barnes in a powerhouse rhythm section didn’t hurt either. The two of them were a joy to watch—it made us wonder what the redheaded stepchild of Glossary and The Features might look like. Last up were local staples How I Became the Bomb, still relatively fresh off a stint in Europe. Singer Jon Burr promised us that he would “rock the house.” And he did, even if some the people in the crowd, many of them quite possibly into double digits in the “Bomb shows” category, were a tad more interested in nurturing their buzz.

Know your friends

Self-professed anarcho-punks Against Me!’s performance last Tuesday at Rcktwn was a mess of contradictions. First, the all-ages venue’s tightly controlled environment is more of a police state than an anarchist’s ideal. Still, along with the swarms of kids and a few parents, we emptied our pockets, got patted down and agreed not to re-enter the building in order to hear a good old-fashioned pissed-off populist punk-rock band. Given the glossier finish of New Wave, the band’s latest full-length and their first for Sire Records, the songs make much more sense in a live setting alongside the band’s back catalog. Frontman Tom Gabel still positions himself as punk rock’s Bruce Springsteen or John Fogerty, barking against the government, the war and then a lot more about the government. Even with all the vitriol, the band unquestionably enjoy themselves. Pogo-ing abounded both onstage and in the crowd. Between the night’s opening bands, the audience was informed by a club staffer that no crowd surfing or stage-diving would be tolerated—a threat completely ignored by the mohawks, cut-off jean jackets and studded belts that made up most of the throng closest to the stage. By song three, the staff had been mobilized, resulting in many concert-goers spending the rest of the show standing in time-out in a corner of the room. During the band’s last song before the ceremonial encore wait, a homemade shirt was thrown onto the stage. Gabel put it on before returning to the stage and asked from where the shirt originated. After identifying the responsible party, Gabel proceeded to lay into the kid, asking how many hit records the kid has made, or if he or she had ever met Butch. When the answer was no, the kid was called an asshole, and the audience rallied behind Gabel. Naturally, we spent the rest of the encore trying to read what the hell was written on the T-shirt. It said “Butch Vig is not your friend,” referring to New Wave’s producer and the producer for such bands as Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Garbage. Doesn’t really seem a bad person to have in your corner as far as we’re concerned.