Got a chance to see Bon Iver perform a sold-out show at the Lakeshore Theater on Thursday night. Collections of Colonies of Bees opened the show and while they were enjoyable I felt like every song they played seemed like an extended intro to a song instead of a song itself. This may have been in part due to the fact that they don’t employ vocals.

Collections of Colonies of Bees

Bon Iver was really impressive, achieving much of the same sound on their album – For Emma, Forever Ago – with just three musicians on stage. Justin Vernon’s voice sounded great and the Lakeshore was a perfect venue for their lo-fi musical stylings. Vernon was also a very genuine individual – even going out of his way to thank the soundboard engineer by name, which was a first. If you haven’t gotten to chance to check out their album I highly recommend it.

Justin Vernon of Bon Iver

Bon Iver

I got a chance to catch the sold-out Bill Callahan performance at the Lakeshore Theatre on Friday night. Callahan was touring in support of his new album ‘Woke on a Whaleheart’ and naturally drew most his performance material from it and his previous album (and my personal fav) ‘A River Ain’t Too Much to Love’.

I would have to say the show had it’s up and downs – not unlike many of Callahan’s studio albums. He played amazing versions of some of my favorites including ‘Bowery’, ‘The Well’, ‘Let Me See the Colts’ and ‘Say Valley Maker’. While he did play a number of songs from the new album, he omitted my two favorites – ‘The Wheel’ and ‘Night’. I guess with no piano on stage ‘Night’ wasn’t gonna happen and as for ‘The Wheel’ I imagine his use of vocal overdubs on the album makes for a difficult song to perform live. One number I was pleasantly surprised by was ‘Diamond Dancer’ which on the album seemed a bit out of place and uninteresting but in concert the song took on a much livelier nature and was the closest Callahan came to rocking out.

I brought my brother and CJ along and CJ was none to happy with the quiet nature of the show. He was out to party and people kept giving him the ’shush’ which only furthered his agitation. After the show we jumped in a cab and CJ felt compelled to yell out the window at all the patrons still lingering outside that they “all had no RHYTHM!”

Afterwards they dragged me to a few ridiculously shit-ass bars where we met up with Diddy and some of Newsman Dan’s boys.

One great part about working from home is it affords me the opportunity to listen to all kinds new music. I used to listen to most of my music while driving, but since moving to Chicago I rarely use my car (matter of fact I’ve driven less than a thousand miles in the last 9 months… I know this because the sticker from the oil change place says so). I discovered Loney, Dear on a sampler CD I received with my purchase of the Elliott Smith disc New Moon. Most sampler discs are discarded without a listen but since I’ve been working on my computer from home for hours on end I find time to listen to just about everything I come across, and the Loney, Dear song ‘I am John’ blew me away.

I picked up the Loney, Dear album Loney, Noir [2005] from Subpop shortly thereafter and loved it from start-to-finish. Loney, Dear hails from Jonkoping, Sweden and if I had to draw a comparison it would perhaps be Belle & Sebastian or The Magnetic Fields – a combination of pop, indie and folk influences constructed around the stunning voice of Emil Svanängen.

Emil Svanängen and Loney, Dear came to the Lakeshore Theater on Friday night, where local Chicago band Magical, Beautiful opened. Magical, Beautiful’s performance had it’s moments… one such moment being the number where Tyson Thurston performed while a young woman tap danced the percussion part in a sailor’s outfit (not to mention on a platform with the title ‘Miss Rene’ on it). If nothing else it was entertaining.

The Loney, Dear performance was fantastic. They opened with a few new numbers that have yet to be released – one of which Emil introduced by stating the ‘price of ticket was worth it for just this one song’ and I must say I agreed wholeheartedly. After the few new numbers they played much of the material from Loney, Noir and I was pleasantly surprised how great they sounded live. The album contains a number of overdubs, harmonies and falsetto vocals that would seem difficult to produce live on stage but they pulled it off without a hitch.

Magical, Beautiful

Loney, Dear

Loney, Dear