Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Spin The Spin: Jennifer O'Connor, Haley Bonar and Caitlin Rose at The End 1/10/09
Posted by The Spin on Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 10:40 AM
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Last night at The End, we thought maybe we saw Mike Mills of R.E.M. sitting at the bar. After all, Mills was spotted at the Gold Rush not long ago, and maybe he was feeling all singer-songwritery. The Spin contingent mulled it over. The glasses and the hair were about right, but it was hard to tell. And then maybe he noticed that we were all looking at him and mulling things over a bunch, so we quit with that.
When the dude stood up after watching Caitlin Rose and Tristen joke, harmonize and guitar-swap through a loose, guard-down and sometimes silly opening set, it was clear he was kinda tall to be Mike Mills. And since he never came back, we assume he was there to see Rose. (Tristen, for her part, said she "didn't know I was playing a show tonight.") Well, be he Mike Mills or no, the tall dude with glasses and hair missed Haley Bonar (pronounced like the first part of "Bonnaroo"), and that's on him, because the St. Paul-y girl was alright.
There are a lot of Haley Bonars out there in the world--one kissing-in-the-supply-closet placement on Gray's Anatomy away from being more than just another pretty voice--but the Haley Bonar who played The End on Tuesday night won us over. Her songs were lovely, delicate and genuine. And we usually hate that kind of shit.
Headliner and Matador signee Jennifer O'Connor probably didn't crack a smile for the first 15 minutes of her set, which fit her deadpan delivery almost too perfectly. But some gentle ribbing--much of it calling into question her allegiance (or lack thereof) to the New York Mets--from a contingent of Nashville friends in attendance did finally coax a grin out of the Brooklyn singer-songwriter. O'Connor played without a full band, joined ably on bass by a fellow whose name we didn't catch (blame Stella for that). For the most part, that was fine, but we really missed the drums on "Hole in the Road," which O'Connor sang like she was trying to find a new melody about halfway through.
Nashville has a lot of singer-songwriters, but not many of them punch on the distortion pedal mid-song and play chunky, discordant arpeggio leads. Too bad, 'cause it was pretty sweet when O'Connor did.
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