Frank Black Setlist
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It’s local, independent radio station The Current’s 20th birthday. As is their custom for a number of years, they celebrate with two shows at First Avenue. The first of those shows was Frank Black performing the 30th anniversary of Teenager of the Year.
Opening things up at time of doors was DJ Jake Rudh. Host of the Current’s show Transmission, Rudh is a regular opener at many shows in the Twin Cities. First Avenue is a great venue for him, with a perch at the back of the second floor and his classic style of song plus video, which played on the large screen at the front of the stage. He mixes a great range of older and more recent songs, including Rilo Kiley’s Portions for Foxes. He’s a master at the craft, weaving from Jesus and the Mary Chain’s Just Like Honey, to newer music with a definite through line. A late appearance of The Sundays’ Here’s Where the Music Ends was a delightful exclamation point to his set.
Current morning host Jill Riley was the connector between acts and highlighted that both Governor Tom Walz and Mayor Melvin Carter (Minnesota Public Radio is located in downtown Saint Paul) had declared it 89.3 The Current Day. She also revealed that the next act has music coming out as soon as next week.
And like that, she’s green, a local band heavy on the shoe gaze feel, was on stage and performing. The quintet are really growing as performers, and their confidence at this show was apparent. That heavy guitar sound underpins Zofia Smith’s vocals, who thankfully isn’t going for the breathy teen girl voice, but instead is singing full throated throughout. Playing their best known song, Mandy, got a nice reaction from the crowd and the band had good chemistry as they worked through their songs. A shout out from the bassist to the Current, to First Ave. and the Twin Cities’ music scene felt genuinely heartfelt as they finished their set. A solid and concise thirty-minute set had the band getting the crowd excited for the headliner. Jake Rudh played another set of songs between performers, which kept things humming along.
Frank Black took to the stage to a raucous crowd reaction. Teenager of the Year is a great post-Pixies album. Although there are twenty-two tracks on the album, it’s kept to a reasonable length as not a single song from the original recording is over five minutes. With only the song Headache being close to a hot single at the time, it might seem strange to tour on this album, but honestly, this is one of the greats from the mid 90’s.
After a pair of “warm ups” songs according to Black, who was chatty throughout the evening, he promised to keep “anecdotes to a minimum”, but his patter kept things moving and connected. Whatever Happened to Pong? started the album and showed that the band was ready to go. And it turned out that much of the original backing band was here for the tour, including Eric Drew Feldman. The song Calistan was an early highlight, with the backing band in excellent form along with Black’s driving vocals. Speedy Marie gave some of the classic Black falsetto, as well as great solo guitar work. Although Black largely covered the vocals, we got the band involved with some back up vocals on Headache, which was needed for the full effect of that song. A change of guitar prior to Sir Rockabyshowed a crew that was on top of their game. Freedom Rock got crowd interaction in the middle (“I said sit down boys…”), knowing all the lyrics.
What really came through is that Black still cares. No pulling punches, no half effort. As they say, he came to play. And coming up to the second half of the album, it’s almost all bangers. We got a switch of bass and keyboard players for Fiddle Riddle and it was clear how much fun the band was having. The stretch of Fazer Eyes, I Could Stay Here Forever, and The Hostess with the Mostest is just as an impressive trio of rock songs as there are to be found and the band nailed them all. Black continued to keep the audience engaged with short stories or statements on the songs, and got a good part of the crowd singing along to Big Red. When the band hit White Noise Maker, the band seemed to kick up another gear to ride through the last songs. In the encore (without ever leaving the stage), Los Angeleshad the entire crowd singing along. By the time things ended with I Heard Ramona Sing, Black and band had the crowd completely in their hand. It was a great ending to a fabulous night of music and perhaps the best version of the anniversary show I’ve yet to see.
thaddeus ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com |
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