When the cafe doors exploded...

This past weekend, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists graced the stage at the Doug Fir lounge for two shows -- a 21+ Saturday night show and an all-ages Sunday evening show. Each show had different opening bands (and thankfully, significantly different set lists) -- so, to get the full experience, and since I missed Leo + Pharmacists the last time or two they passed through town, I was at both shows.

Hungry Ghost (Saturday)
A Portland-based guy/girl, guitar/drums, rock/roll duo (featuring Unwound's Sara Lund) -- Hungry Ghost were a lot of noisy fun. It's a bit too easy to compare them to early-era Quasi, but with their easy rapport, bluesy rock songs, fantastic drummer, and school-yard-caliber rhymes, the comparison just fits a bit too well. And given Portland's current glut of hyper-ironic, self-aware RAWK bands, it's a comparison that's certainly welcome.


The Golden Bears (Saturday)
This band has been receiving a lot of love over the past few years -- from both local and national press -- so, I was really excited to finally be able to check these folks out. Turns out...I already had. I don't know why any trace of seeing this band had been wiped from my memory...but I guess a band or two are bound to slip through the cracks, given the number of shows I try to make it out to over the course of the year. That's not to say that this band is worth forgetting. Anything but! A great (loud) fuzzy sound, loads of energy, wonderful lyrics...another fantastic band on the scene that's worth checking out.


The Hive Dwellers (Sunday)
The latest project from Calvin Johnson finds the man backing his solo-work-sound with a jazzy, beachy, guitar/drums duo. Unlike his previous "Sons of the Soil" project, which appropriated some of Johnson's songs in a surfer-cowboy band motif, the Hive Dwellers simply act as background fill-in for Johnson's sparse, at times a capella, modern-prairie cowboy schtick. And in a really odd way, it works. Hopefully an LP will be forthcoming from these guys.
(Also, it's always fun to watch teenagers and newcomers figure out exactly how to respond to Calvin Johnson's stage persona.)


Ted Leo + the Pharmacists
I don't know how to describe these guys without slathering such a review in hyperbole. Ted Leo has always been one of the unsung heroes of rock music (and/or punk rock, depending on where your loyalties lie), and has always found a backing band of near-equal caliber.
After the stumble that was Living with the Living (not a bad album, mind you -- just a bit overlong and too ambitious), Leo is back with another set of barnstormers for the Thinking Man (The Brutalist Bricks, for those keeping score). And the fire and the contagious passion found on the album seem to have easily bled over into the live show. Leo + Pharmacists have always come into their own on stage -- even more so than in the studio -- but this past weekend's set of shows were far beyond anything I could have hoped for.
The Saturday night set pulled heavily from The Brutalist Bricks and Shake the Sheets, with the occasional detour into the other albums, as well as a few of those now-expected, odd-ball cover songs.
Sunday, on the other hand, saw one or two of the newer songs swapped for other newer songs, as well as a heavy pull of songs from The Tyranny of Distance.
Both sets were equally fantastic -- and ended up being significantly different enough to make them both a special experience.

Songs played over both sets (in alphabetical order, not set order):
American Ruse (MC5 cover)
Angelfuck (Misfits song)
Army Bound
Ativan Eyes (? -- I want to say he played this one on Sunday, but that could very well be revisionist wishful thinking)
Bleeding Powers (another one I'm not 100% on)
Bottled Up in Cork
Bottle of Buckie
Colleen
Counting Down the Hours
Even Heroes Have to Die
Gimme the Wire
Heart Problems
The High Party
Last Days
Little Dawn
Me and Mia
The Mighty Sparrow
Mourning in America
One Polaroid a Day
The One Who Got us Out
Parallel or Together
The Stick
Timorous Me
Under the Hedge
Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone
Where Was my Brain
Who Do You Love

and two other songs I don't know -- one he referred to as a "new new song", so possibly one that has yet to be recorded, and another cover that I didn't catch the name of.