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| Big Thief |
Second show this week at Variety Playhouse! On Monday night, we saw Angel Olsen and her band perform there and last night we saw Big Thief with Palehound opening.
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| Palehound |
The first time we saw Palehound was at The Drunken Unicorn opening for Bully back in 2016. In 2017, we saw them at Terminal West opening for Waxahatchee. Both shows were great, and last night's performance at Variety Playhouse was just as good. Palehound, fronted by Boston's Ellen Kempner, performed several of the older songs that we heard on those previous shows, as well as new songs like last month's Your Boyfriend's Gun, which was even more devastating live than in the studio version.
Bonus points: someone in the audience gave Ellen a bouquet of flowers during her set.
Last night was also our third time seeing Brooklyn's Big Thief. We saw them in 2015 opening for Here We Go Magic on a day when their tour bus had broken down in Alabama and they didn't get to the show until way late. Atlanta's Little Tybee covered for them both by starting late (10:30 pm) and by playing a long marathon of a set until Big Thief finally arrived. However and unfortunately, Big Thief played a short set that night due to their lateness and to allow the headliner, Here We Go Magic, to finally take the stage at 12:30 am.
Last night was also our third time seeing Brooklyn's Big Thief. We saw them in 2015 opening for Here We Go Magic on a day when their tour bus had broken down in Alabama and they didn't get to the show until way late. Atlanta's Little Tybee covered for them both by starting late (10:30 pm) and by playing a long marathon of a set until Big Thief finally arrived. However and unfortunately, Big Thief played a short set that night due to their lateness and to allow the headliner, Here We Go Magic, to finally take the stage at 12:30 am.
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| Big Thief |
Their run of bad luck extended to the second time we saw Big Thief, this time opening for Yuck and Sunflower Bean at Aisle 5 in 2016. Frontwoman Adrianne Lenker had ruptured an eardrum the week before and had to perform wearing large, noise-cancelling headphones. Despite that, it was a great set, and afterwards it dawned on us that Big Thief quite possibly was one of our favorite bands.
Since then, the band has been busy, touring, playing festivals, and recording, and 2019 appears to be their breakout year. They released not one but two albums this year, both to critical acclaim and 9.0+ scores from Pitchfork, and are now headliners in their own right.
Last night's show was marred, in my opinion, by a too-loud PA system at Variety Playhouse that distorted the higher notes in Lenker's vocals and made her guitar sound scratchy (and not in a good way). Fortunately, the sound people eventually corrected the problem and balanced the sound better but unfortunately not until they had already performed standout songs like Masterpiece, the titular song of their first album and Not, the standout song of their latest album, Two Hands.
Bonus points: someone in the audience gave Adrienne a hand-painted t-shirt during her set.
Notwithstanding technical difficulties, they performed a fine, energetic set that belied their folk-rock reputation. Make no mistake: Big Thief are a rock band and even if they are all graduates of Boston's Berklee School of Music, they're not afraid of getting their hair mussed a little and playing loud and passionately.
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