Following an appearance at Pitchfork Festival in Chicago this summer, I had been hankering to see Yo La Tengo in a real venue. The Pitchfork appearance was sort of a truncated greatest hits set with shaky sound in the hot midday sun, not an ideal setting for any concert. The performance was fine, but it only whetted my appetite to see the band in the best of venues: First Avenue.
On Wednesday, Oct. 7, I finally had my chance to see the Hoboken, New Jersey-based pioneering indie veterans in downtown Minneapolis. Husband and wife duo Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley along with bassist James McNew took the stage and played a two-hour show that demonstrated their penchant for variety.
Opener Cheap Time played alternative inflected ‘80s rock. The bassist even had hair a la Poison or Def Leppard. When they announced they were from Nashville, their whole sound made a lot more sense, but they still seemed out of place at the show. The initial song was mildly interesting, but after ten minutes I wasn’t sure if they had played four songs or one long song. Mercifully they did not banter or speak much and pounded out derivative song after derivative song before concluding their brief set.
Laid back was the watchword of the entire evening. Many all-ages concerts include swarms of concert newbies who show up at First Avenue as soon as the doors open only to wait an hour or more for the music to start. The Yo La Tengo fanbase consists of savvy (some might say “old”) concertgoers. I would say the average age was 30+. This kept things enjoyably relaxed and not too rowdy at any point, which made for an enjoyable evening.
Finally at 10:30 p.m. Yo La Tengo took the stage to modest; yet excited applause and tore into the fifteen-minute “The Glitter is Gone” off their new album, Popular Songs.
Kaplan showed off his famous guitar histrionics, flailing and bashing his red Stratocaster furiously, creating unearthly welps and screeches that incongruously meshed well with McNew’s driving and repetitive bass. The band continued the volume assault with louder songs before quieting things down with the more somber “Summer of the Shark,” a request from the audience.
The band was accessible and likeable, conversing with the crowd, taking requests and pausing at one point to repair a bass strap with duct tape on stage. Yo La Tengo started its career in 1984, and the many varied terrains and genres explored in their lengthy tenure were on full display as the band played everything from long jammy noise freakouts to quiet poppy folk songs. All three members shared vocal duties, from Kaplan’s hushed, subdued vocals to McNew’s Neil Young-esque warble on “Stockholm Syndrome.” Hubley stepped out from behind the drumset to sing a few songs herself and accompanied Kaplan on a cover of Daniel Johnston’s “Speeding Motorcycle.”
Inspecting the set list from the Chicago show the night prior, it seemed that Yo La Tengo would do two encores, one acoustic and one longer electrified one. Indeed, when they returned to the stage the first time, Kaplan had a set list in hand that appeared lengthy. I speculate they got cut short because the final song was a strange one with which to end. In addition, several of the band’s superhits (“Autumn Sweater,” “Sugarcube”) had yet to be played. I would not let this damper the show, which was amazing, but it still was a bit frustrating. The fact that a two-hour show had what felt like an abrupt ending is illustrative of how enjoyable the concert was. I was engrossed the whole time and likely would never have been satisfied with it being over. Three out of three crowns for surpassing my hopes for the night and putting on a fantastic show in my favorite venue.