Friday 25 February.  Yo La Tengo.  9:30 Club, Washington D.C. 

Chairs filling the wide open spaces of the 9:30 dance floor.  Dad chaperoning his kids.  Forty-somethings (me included).  A fifteen piece support band from Nashville.  Guy of a married couple forming two-thirds of main act singing a birthday song to his missus.  Conversations about the stock market, Alan Greenspan and Clinton's inability to deliver Congress.  My mate feeling all faint and having to sit down.  JC in Idaho on the ski slopes. 

Not the basis of a cool evening, you think?  Think again dear reader.  YLT are this month's Ben and Jerry flavour.  Years on from their no-wave, punk, NYC beginnings, Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, the aforementioned hubby and wifey team, have finally made it thanks to an excellent new platter And then nothing turned itself inside-out.  Famous in indie circles for drone rock, subtle whispered vocals, freak out Ira guitar breaks and great consistent songwriting, YLT deserve all the praise they are getting belatedly albeit. 

Bassist James McNew completes this tight, yet photogenically challenged combo.  For this tour Mac McCaughan of Superchunk and David Kilgour of The Clean fill in musical duties - guitar, keys, percussion, falling over, breaking guitar strap. 

I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One is to this listener their finest moment to date.  But, they chose on Friday to cull a large portion of And then for their DC set - the start of a midi-US tour.  From the first bars of the sonic elegy "Night Falls on Hoboken", the 9:30 audience were at their feet (literally).  Let's "Save Tony Orlando's House", a bosaa rocka, "From Black to Blue" and "Tears are in Your Eyes" were the highlights of the first half of the set all taken from And then.   "I Live in the Springtime", a Lemon Drops cover, marked the middle of the set and was a change of pace, but we were soon back to the sweet-bitter feel with "The Crying of Lot G". 

Then pure theatre as James and Ira moved centre stage and hand danced to "You Can Have It All".  Next up two cracking upbeat tracks from Heart - "Deeper into Movies" and "Moby Octopad".  Surprisingly these were the only two songs taken from YLT's '97 disk.  They closed out with "Our Way To Fall" and "Big Day Coming".  Then the little birthday scene with Ira and Georgia.  I know it sounds awful.  It was sweet, personal and mildly embarrassing.  But, you had to hand it to the guy, he's sincere.  Final encore the pop-ster-rific "Tom Courtenay" (sung by Georgia) - "Julie Christie, the rumours are true" - from the monster Electro-pura. 

I struggle to find the right words to describe my feelings about this concert.  YLT are very unassuming, which is part of their charm.  Despite that, they really kick and can turn up the feedback, wander off to indie-ville or whatever.  Certainly the best band ever out of Hoboken, NJ.   We were left wanting more, but it was 1:40am and I guess you can get only so much of a good thing. 

Check out Matador Records home page and the unofficial YLT site and would you believe another one?  Thanks (in absentia to mrpatty@earthlink.net) for the play list. 

Extra added attraction were Lambchop.  Yep, fifteen, count 'em, 15 on stage at one.  Couple of bassists, percussion, steel guitar, understated horn section, all focussed on Kurt Wagner's crackly falsetto and sparse guitar.  Did I mention they come from Nashville?  Well, this is a country band, but forge cowboy hats and shiny pickup trucks.  This is fine gritty love song stuff with only a hint of Tennessee twang. 
 
 
 

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