Last night, I made a b-line south to catch Team Love members Tilly and the Wall down in Philly up the street from Independence Hall. YEAH! Rhyming rules! I had to get that out of my system.
I just didn't want to be denied seeing them live after conflicts of interest (they toured last year with Bright Eyes, I can't stand him, and they played NYC the same night of FWD:CCCP), hence the drive down. It was completely worth it, albeit an uncomfortable environment. Through out this post, I'll be referencing how nasty, humid, stuffy, smelly and sweaty the venue was, so please bare with me.
Tilly and the Wall is a three woman, two guy outfit hailing for Omaha, Nebraska, hence the Conor Oberst Team Love label association. Tilly's new album, Bottoms of Barrels, is a strong candidate for one of my top 5 albums of the year. While their 2004 debut, Wild Like Children, established their sound, girl-group vocals mixed with strong beats provided by a mixture of tap dancing, percussion, hand claps and punctuated acoustic guitars, this new album builds on that with perfectly crafted lyrics and choruses. Bottoms fluctuates between alt-country ballads, flamenco, theatrical elements and even hip-hop beats. I love every moment of it. After I first listened to it, I said to myself, "Why can't every album be this cool and fun?"
As you can see, I needs to see me some Tilly live. Now, I knew going down that the First Unitarian Church venue is actually that, a church who rents the basement out for evil rock 'n' roll gigs. I also knew that there is no air conditioning. After I found parking, I began walking to the church and looked at my ticket -- ALL AGES. So that probably meant no alcohol. No big deal, it is a church. When I saw the church, I see a bunch of kids sitting around outside. When I say kids, I don't mean college age, not even high school, try middle school. It all comes to together: all ages, end of June, school's out for summer, this is the first night of the summer break. I said to myself, "Wonderful, I'm going to feel like a NARC among a bunch of 13-year olds."
I know people are waiting outside to get out from inside, but I go in to catch the opening act David Donaro. I make my way down the steps and the smell hits me big time. Imagine a guys locker room with no A.C. after a football game on a 100 degree day. You get the idea. First the smell, then the radiating humidity and heat washes over you at the door.
Whenever you get into a new venue, you either have two thoughts, "Wow, this is nice" or "This is it?" I had the later. It's your basic, narrow church basement. There's no bar/concession stand, no lighting set-up, no P.A. system and no balcony. The stage is barely 2 feet off the ground and the speakers are on scaffolding. There's a scattering of stationary fans that don't give much relief and the ceiling fans are barely functioning. It is pretty much the definition of a D.I.Y. concert venue. The one big plus is that there is a used CD and vinyl vendor in a corridor so you can rummage through things between sets.
I grab a water, which doesn't give me much relief. I'm just going to have to tough it out like a big boy. I'm standing on side and everyone around me is 10-15 years younger then me. The DJ played "Pass the Douchie" and I'm the only who remembers when that song first came out. While these kids have good tastes in music and it's great there's an all-ages venue in the city, I get that sinking feeling, "Was I ever like this?" I'll leave it at that. I just wanted the band to go so I wouldn't look every bit of my 31 years.
Since there's no backstage area, the band just stands on the side of the stage and walks out together. The stage lights are just the overheads lights, very low tech. Once the show starts, the crowd goes nuts and jumps around to "Bad Education," "The Ice Storm," and "Sing Songs Along." I'm no tap dancer, but damn did I wantto tap dance through the whole thing. Their resident tapper, Jamie, stands on an amplified box, which provides the beat for most of the tunes. It being unbearable in the room, she gave it her all and then some.
It's just a total love fest of a show. It's been my experience that Philly crowds are less jaded than New York, so they tend to be more enthusiastic. They shouted every lyric and cheered like there was no tomorrow. The big moment of chaos was when Neely and Kianna asked a volunteer to do some hip-hop dancing for "The Freest Man." One kid, becomes two, two becomes 50 within a minute. The two soldiered on with the smile on their face that says, "This is very cool ... I think." One kid nearly knocked over the keyboards. While it's pretty funny to watch, it's just not that entertaining to see kids bum rush the show because you want to be on the stage as well and feel the Team Love. Someone yelled after the song, "Get off the stage!" before I could. The kicker was at the end, Kianna said, "Okay, who stole my setlist?" I have some video of this craziness after the jump.
It was a wonderful, inspiring show from the gang and it was done a little after 11pm, just in time for curfew. No joke, I saw a mother come in and drag her kids away, "I'm waiting outside." I was cracking up. The band did say that they'll remember the gig for a long time, so they came right out to sign autographs with the kids. When I got outside, there were a series of dads waiting for their kids. Man, it took me back to the days of the middle school dance.
Anyway, that's my story. Seeing a show in a church basement, besides leaving me suffocated, sticky and smelling like a sweaty armpit, is rather charming in that "let's put on a show" way.
i got to catch tilly at the nyc show. its nice to see a band so cheery and happy to be on stage with one another.
jamie told us about how there was a mix up with her laundry so at the gig before the nyc one she had to wear a bathingsuit on stage. hehe did you know she is engaged to the singer?
Posted by: Nadine | June 18, 2006 at 10:18 AM
omg, i was there. thank you for putting this up. its nice to hear other peoples takes on shows and such. right when we got to the show, my twenty year old sister was complaining saying 'i'm surrounded by a bunch of fourteen year olds'. i thought it was an amazing show and i can not wait to see them sometime in the future.
Posted by: allison | July 10, 2006 at 11:20 PM