I made it out to The Music Gallery in time to catch the tailend of The Silt's set and then all of Jon-Rae Fletcher and The River/The Choir's set. Right off, I'll mention that I didn't get any photos since I hung out at the back but I instruct you to check out suckingalemon's rundown(plus photos) of the show.From the couple of songs I heard of The Silt, their music had an off-kilter quality. The second last song reminded me of Great Lakes Swimmers but sounded a little more experimental with the lonseome bassoon(or was that a sax?) and the guitarist's slo-core guitar noodling. The last song was a more fleshed out band effort that sounded like The Flaming Lips playing a soul-funk song. From where I stood, I couldn't see the vocalist song because I think he was sitting on the floor. The guitarist switched on the guitar effects pedal for the song giving it that soul-funk sound, with the drummer adding his own casual beats.
For some reason, I was sort of sleepy during the show and the darkness of the church(except for the stage lights) didn't help. I stood at the back for half of the show but then ended up sitting on a bench at the right side of the church. From all I've read about Jon-Rae Fletcher and The River/The Choir's live shows and even based on the first time I saw Jon-Rae and The River live when they opened for Cuff The Duke at Lee's Palace this past summer, I was expecting to be knocked off my feet. It never happened yesterday. As I already mentioned I was a little sleepy during the show, but there was also a mellowiness to the crowd. While Jon-Rae and The River and The Choir had a respectable amount of energy on stage, the crowd seemed kind of catatonic.
The 17-member Choir was impressive, not just for fitting themself onto the stage but also for managing to make wide variety of different sounding voices mesh together seamlessly. Jon-Rae Fletcher opened the show solo with a brief rustic alt-country song then brought out The Choir who literally came from out of the woodworks to gather themselves onto the stage. With Jon-Rae on guitar and another gentleman on piano, Jon-Rae and The Choir first performed a couple of traditionals including a great-sounding "Down By The River". Later on in the set, was the Jon-Rae and The River set which featured a more conventional band set-up. With yesterday being the first time experiencing The Choir, I thought it was fantastic, but in all honesty I prefer the noisy country-rock freakouts of Jon-Rae and The River. If I recall correctly, one of the members(the drummer?) also performs with The Hidden Cameras and on certain songs I could hear a similar sort of giddiness in Jon-Rae's tunes, especially with the energetic percussion. At different times, the drummer energetically tapped the framework of his drumkit, or one of the keyboardists would hand drum the side of his keyboard. On one song, during an instrumental break in the song, the drummer and one of the keyboardists playfully started a kids hand-clap session. The River's lone female member on background vocals, took lead vocals on a soulful country-rock song which almost stole the show in my opinion.
Later on in the set, The Choir came out again. I really enjoyed their performance of this song which I recall had a repetitive lyrical chorus along the line of 'sous les monde'(?). My french is terrible but I think that would translate to 'under the world'. Jon-Rae and The Choir closed the show with Jon-Rae getting a little more goofy at times with his vocal phrasing(eg. the way he emphasized certain words) that at times brought the crowd to laughter. It was a good show overall but not the sweaty gospel-fueled intensity I was hoping for[there wasn't even an encore.] As someone on Stille Post mentioned, the show wasn't sold out which was little surprising given the previous day's Eye Weekly Jon-Rae cover story. Still wallowing in obscurity I guess[I would think the No Depression/alt-country scene would fawn all over them], but it's only a matter of time.
[photo credit(at top): suckingalemon]
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