Good Weather For Airstrikes

UPDATE: Fellow UVA student Taylor was able to get the setlist from the show, which was written on the back of a torn-up Pita Pit menu, and I’ve added it to the body of the post below.Despite a hastily-thrown together line-up and last-minute planning, PK German - the concert-planning committee I’m on at UVA - still managed to throw together a pretty awesome indie showcase concert last night at the Satellite Ballroom, featuring renowned headliners Les Savy Fav. Considering that Pitchfork called Les Savy Fav “the best live band in the universe. Period.”, I was extremely excited to see LSF despite being a bit of a latecomer to their bandwagon, only having first really gotten into them after hearing 2004’s Inches. However, if there’s one band I should love more than anyone it’s Les Savy Fav, as I have personal family connections to the band; bassist Syd Butler, who moonlights as the single nicest guy in the world, and his mother are close family friends, meaning I got to view Saturday’s indie showcase for free and hang out with the guys afterwards.

As for their live show, the hype is completely warranted, as LSF are incredible live and frontman Tim Harrington is the single most entertaining lead singer in all of rock. Harrington is known for his on-stage live antics, and his reputation preceded him to the point that there were two policeman looming ominously in the corner of the venue, supposedly because someone with UVA had heard that Tim gets naked on stage (which according to Syd, “happened maybe once in the last ten years, and that was in Spain”). But despite the concert officials’ concerns regarding Tim’s hijinx, he did nothing to water them down and still put on an incredible show. Antics include:

• taking various members of the audience’s belongings and putting them on, which resulted in him at one point parading around the stage while singing “We’ll Make a Lover of Youâ€? wearing some guy’s hat, a girl’s “strong prescriptionâ€? glasses, and swinging some innocent bystander’s video camera around the stage and filming the band from on stage
• physically leaving the venue twice, the second time of which he walked around to the side window of the venue and knocked on it, prompting someone to remove the curtain so the entire audience could watch him singing the song from the outside of the window looking in (fortunately the mic cord stretched that far, creating a cool effect where despite his location outside the venue his vocals could still be hear from the speakers inside)
• taking off his shirt (multiple times)
• and in the final song of the encore, entering the crowd and sitting in the middle of the venue on the floor, signaling for everyone to do the same, as he sang the final words of the chorus while the instrumentation faded out

The setlist was near-perfect too, as they got to my two favorites, “We’ll Make a Lover of You” and “The Sweat Descends”, the latter of which was awesome, though they did omit “Meet Me In The Dollar Bin”, a song I’d really been looking forward to hearing live. They also played “Raging in the Plague Age”, one of two songs made available by eMusic as a free download last week. If you get the chance to see The Fav live I wouldn’t pass it up regardless of how much or how little you enjoy the band’s recorded material, as it’s an unforgettable experience. Peep the setlist:

Setlist:
Tragic Monsters
In These Woods
We’ll Make a Lover of You
The Slip
Yawn, Yawn, Yawn
No Sleeves
The Sweat Descends [highly recommended]
I.C. Timer
Rage in the Plague Age
One Way Widow
Obsessed with the Excess
Rodeo
Rome

Encore:
(Unknown)
Who Rocks the Party

After the show I ate dinner with the band at the bistro next door, where I tried to hold my own as we discussed the decline of Hot Hot Heat, the state of the music industry, and I got to learn more about the business side of music (Syd started and owns French Kiss Records, home of LSF, Thunderbirds Are Now! and the former label of The Hold Steady). Syd also filled me in on the background behind “Raging in the Plague Age”, which is truly an awesome inspiration for a fuck-it-let’s-party punk rock song. Back in the Middle Ages in the time of the Black Plague, the rich and wealthy would stock up on supplies and alcohol and all move inside the walls of the castle and party until the plague had passed and it was safe to emerge from the castle and re-enter the outside world. In “Raging in the Plague Age”, the king has been ostracized from his castle due to his infection with the plague (”I used to hold the biggest balls, from deep inside my castle walls”), but soon everyone inside has the revelation that someone among them in the castle has the plague, and everyone’s resolution is just to party as hard as ever since they know they’re all doomed to die shortly anyway (”throw up the drawbridge and draw down the blinds, everyone inside is getting high tonight/waiting for the plague to move on, no one’s getting sober ’til the liquor’s all gone”). Personally I think it’s a really awesome song concept, and you can download “Plague Age” as well as “When You Wake Up a Snake” below, since they’re free on eMusic anyway.

MP3s:
“Meet Me In The Dollar Bin” - Les Savy Fav
“When You Wake Up A Snake” - Les Savy Fav
“Raging In The Plague Age” - Les Savy Fav [highly recommended]

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 26th, 2006 at 2:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.