Wings For Wheels

One of my favorite things about Chicago is the sheer amount of live music that comes through town on a regular basis. This increases exponentially in the summer, when neighborhood street festivals and the parks bring in a lot of big-name acts, and there’s a lot of potential for conflict when you have to choose. Last night could have ended up that way, but it turned out fine in the end.

The Old 97s were performing at Navy Pier as part of a traveling show by the Texas Board of Tourism. Also, Bill Janovitz, the lead singer of Buffalo Tom, was doing a solo show at Schubas. Both shows had their advantages. On the one hand, we had an intimate evening by a great singer-songwriter who doesn’t perform often outside of his native Boston. On the other, a free outdoor show by one of my favorite bands. These are tough decisions, people.

But fate intervened. The Old 97s were scheduled to go on at 7:00, while Janovitz wasn’t starting until 10:00. The Old 97s show would probably end around 9:00. I could walk about a mile to the Grand station on the Red Line, take that to Belmont, and walk the five blocks to Schubas with enough time to spare. Beautiful. The plan was set.

I got to Navy Pier probably around 5:45, which gave me a good spot a few feet away from the stage. The opening act was Austin’s Patricia Vonne, who performed in both English and Spanish. For the Spanish songs, she donned a pair of castanets which she played with a theatrical flair while she sang. The songs were good and her voice was strong and clear, and it certainly didn’t hurt that she was very sexy.

But it was really the Old 97s that I came to see and they didn’t waste much time getting started. They opened with “Won’t Be Home” which opens 2004’s Drag It Up. They followed it up with another recent song, “Dance With Me,” from their excellent 2008 release Blame It On Gravity.

Yes, that’s my thumb slightly obscuring the lens in the opening 20 seconds. But hey, the iPhone 4 takes pretty good videos, doesn’t it?

After a few songs, Rhett Miller traded that battered Telecaster Deluxe for an acoustic, and the show settled into a groove, but not at the expense of energy. Just like their records, bassist Murry Hammond sang lead about every fourth song. They played a handful of newer songs, but the bulk of the set came from their first few records, including a cover of Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried.” They gave a shout-out to their former label, the Chicago-based Bloodshot Records, before “W-I-F-E” (yes!), and they even broke out “Curtain Calls,” a deep track from Too Far To Care.

They also played two songs that will likely be on their next album, both of which I liked a lot. Surprisingly, they played nothing from Fight Songs and only one song from Satellite Rides, “Question,” which Rhett prefaced by asking if a woman named Anna was in the crowd, and dedicated it to her.

When the song finished, I heard a commotion behind me. I had a feeling I knew what it was, so I turned around and, sure enough, about 10 feet away, a man was on his knees asking Anna to be his wife. I’ve seen it happen at least once before at an Old 97s show (I don’t remember if it happened at a Rhett solo show I was at), and the band doesn’t seem to get tired of seeing it. Even though they haven’t gotten the fame they’ve deserved, Rhett has to take pride in having created the soundtrack to so many marriage proposals.

EDIT: Anna tells the story here.

But how do you follow that up? Part of me was hoping that they’d do “Wish The Worst,” one of the all-time great revenge songs, but that’s just my perverse sense of humor. To be honest, I don’t really remember what they did (“Stoned,” perhaps?), but not too long after that, Rhett brought back the Tele and the tempo picked up even more, with old chestnuts like “Victoria,” “Big Brown Eyes,” and a slamming “Barrier Reef.”

Although they play “Barrier Reef” at every show, I like to think they brought it out special for me because Rhett knows how much I love it. By the way, check out what drummer Philip Peeples does just before the final verse. He’s one of the most underrated drummers around.

They left the stage after “Four Leaf Clover,” with Rhett returning a few minutes later. He performed a couple of songs from his solo records, “The El” (presumably for Chicago), and “I Need To Know Where I Stand.” The band returned for three more songs, a cover of David Bowie’s “Five Years,” “The Easy Way,”  and a breathless “Timebomb.”

It was about 8:50, which was perfect timing. I began making my way to the train to catch the Bill Janovitz show, but not before briefly stopping to buy a bottle of water and take this picture.

I love this city.

I got to Schubas at about 9:45, a little too close for comfort, but it wasn’t crowded. Buffalo Tom were a big musical part of my mid-twenties angst, which is a nice way of saying that I don’t listen to them much anymore. I readily admit that’s not fair, because their trifecta of Let Me Come Over, Big Red Letter Day, and Sleepy Eyed are as smart and tuneful as anything the  And I re-connected with Janovitz early last year through his excellent Cover Of The Week blog (where the posts are as good as his songs) and his Twitter feed, which was how I knew he was playing here, opening for the Radar Brothers.

The only time I saw Buffalo Tom was at Baltimore’s Pier Six Pavilion in the summer of 1994. It was a day of Boston power pop trios beginning with Gigolo Aunts (who were good) and ending with The Lemonheads (who sucked). Buffalo Tom were in the middle and blew the place up with a phenomenal set.

For the better part of the last decade, Janovitz has been working as a real estate agent, occasionally gigging in the Boston area as a solo act and, more recently, with a reunited Buffalo Tom. He doesn’t look that much different than he did 16 years ago. A different haircut, a few lines on the face, maybe, but otherwise unchanged.

His voice has also held up very well. Until he started singing Rolling Stones songs for his website, I had never realized how much of an influence Mick Jagger was on him. But knowing that and hearing his own songs with just an acoustic, you can hear it in his inflections and the way he draws out vowels as long as possible. That’s really tough to pull off without resorting to parody (witness Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right” as an example) but Janovitz pulled it off, despite having a few problems at the top of his range.

I was pretty drained from the Old 97s show (and a 25-mile bike ride early that morning), so I found a spot on the bench directly below the sound man where I could still see everything. But after the first song, I wanted a better view, so I worked my way through the crowd (only about 60 people) and got up front. The battery on my phone was running low, so I only took a few pictures, no videos.

I probably could have gotten a less-grainy shot, but I don’t like using a flash at shows.

But I’m glad I moved when I did, because his third song in was “I’m Allowed,” which was the song that first turned me on to them back in 1994, and one that was a regular part of my own gigs after that.

I stayed up there for a few songs, then my knees were being a pain again, so I went back to my original spot, where I stayed for the rest of the night.

He pulled from the whole of Buffalo Tom’s catalog, including some other favorites like “Your Stripes,” “Taillights Fade” and “Treehouse.” The crowd, all of whom were about my age, contributed Chris Colbourn’s counterpoint vocals when necessary in absentia. He also added a really good song from an album that they just finished recording and will begin mastering this week (if Giles reviews it as part of the You Again? series, he’s a dead man), and did a couple of covers, including Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City,” which got me on my feet again, albeit briefly (it’s so predictable, it’s sad, really).

Janovitz left the stage around 11:15, ending with “Crutch.” Under normal circumstances, I would have stayed for the headliner to see if they were any good, but I was too tired. Plus, I was really hungry,because I hadn’t eaten since an ice cream cone at Navy Pier around 5:30. Unfortunately, Schubas’ kitchen was closed, so I staggered back down Belmont over to Clarke’s and got a waffle and a chance to relax. Then I took the El back to my apartment and crashed pretty quickly.