Concert Date: February 23rd, 2011
Ticket Cost post fees: $33per
Set Time: 9-11pm ish
Josh Ritter!
A friend suggested this show and I had forgotten about it (Thanks ML). My personal life was arranged and…here I am!
Bought my ticket on Ticketmaster. Under “notes” on the buy page it listed contraband. The list of banned things included explosives and chains. Along with some various forms of cutlery. Whole thing seems weird to me given my imagined demographic for the show. I know I personally enjoy a show after a firebombing where the (mostly female) survivors lay into each other with chains and knives. I’ll replace my sordid Red Dawn meets Texas Bunkhouse Match fantasies and concentrate on the show.
8-9:00 on your setlist is Scott Hutchison. Lead singer of Frightened Rabbit. The answer is yes. Very good. Check him out if you haven’t. Better….his band, Frightened Rabbit, is awesome live if you haven’t had the pleasure.
There you go. Pimping it up. ‘Cause my game so pimpish. Speaking of which.
Pre-game completed at friends house. Now? At the Crystal. My mental forecast was the Crystal was an overshot capacity-wise for this show. Way wrong. Hallelujah. 900-1000 strong is my guess. Nicely done, Portland. On a shitty weather night, no less. The crowd? Skews female as intuition suggests. Strong sprinkling of mid-week date night. As with any estrogen heavy event, a good part of the crowd looks to be getting laid tonight. Many, many others? Verbally offing their partners (and probably giving the people within earshot motivation to become an IV drug user or shotgun sucker) in an orgy of meaningless drama laden chit-chat and bullshit. History made the fucking hard way.
We start in the mezz. Beer it up. Let’s hit it.
Sound is great up here. Josh Ritter starts the show all solo and dark. A very well played version of “Come And Find Me” is laid down before the Royal City Band appears on stage and we are treated to a rollicking version of “Good Man” from The Animal Years.
Babe we both had dry spells
Hard times in bad lands
Very happy to hear “Good Man” live for the first time. The next two songs are downtempo hump your date’s leg music judging from the couple in front of us. I’m not in estrus so I focus on beer drinking. Properly plied, we head to the floor to see if the action is any sexier.
The answer.
Similar.
Ritter’s sound isn’t immediately classifiable. Not lounge. Not pop. Not country. Like all artists, the final product exists in a space of it’s own making. It is a fun show. SHOW. We have spotlighted singalongs for the floor and balc. Foot stomping at the lip of the stage to re-engage the crowd. And. The downer of the night for me was the off-mic rendition of “Thin Blue Flame”. I’m sure up front or in a room with a 300-500 cap, this song is pure fire. In a big house for 1200 ish, and from where I was sitting? Sounded like a cracked up Jim Morrison reading soundbites from a Joseph Wambaugh book. Which is a goddamn shame. “Thin Blue Flame” is a lyrical gold mine.
My catty bullshit aside? If you are a fan of Josh Ritter’s work, the show isn’t going to disappoint. Props to him for finding his niche in the biz and bringing it. I admire anyone who braves doing this over the long haul, and Ritter has. Judging from this house? It may not be full, but Josh’s guarantee next time in PDX will be healthy for sure.
Musical highlights for me come off The Historical Conquests Of Josh Ritter album. “Real Long Distance” and “Right Moves” get me all dorked up and moving around. If you aren’t into Josh Ritter’s work and want to give it a spin try Conquests and The Animal Years is my advice. Or you can ask some guy on the street where to start, but he isn’t going to say any different. And if he does? So what. He’s high. Listen to those albums anyways.
Best moment for the night though, was the percussion heavy “Rattling Locks” off of 2010′s So Runs The World Away. Groovy vocal over a nicely restrained distorted guitar with a constant rhythm from drumsticks against each other and more traditional drumming. Live? It is most definitely fire. The couple in front of us agreed. They were swallowing each other’s tongues. This show is definitely white rhino horn quality for many in this crowd. So fun. Replace the drug use of heavier rock shows with the public make out here. I’m cool with it all. Your vice is nice with me.
Cool show. I wasn’t 100% in it, but so what. Fun and no regrets. This obviously wasn’t really for me. Awwwwwww, you young lovers in the crowd. Was for you. I need a show with some feedback and an overdriven guitar stat. And screaming. And crowd drugging. When the fuck are The Kills coming around again, anyways?
