great lake swimmers @ bottom of the hill (photos, review, etc)
Last Friday Great Lake Swimmers (myspace) played at the Bottom of the Hill. Kate Maki (myspace) and Ari Shine (myspace) opened.
Ari Shine was a last minute replacement for Winterbirds. I was excited about seeing them, so it was already a bit of a disappointment before I saw Ari Shine. I also found his music to be a fairly typical and uninspiring songwriter material.
Kate Maki played a nice set. Her stage persona, at least on this day, was fascinatingly odd, though. She was argumentative with the audience–with a dead serious look in her eyes–then, after the audience froze for a second, she’d laugh. There was no hint that she was anything but serious up until the point she laughed. Quite odd.
Great Lake Swimmers came up last. I’d never seen them live despite liking their stuff since their debut album. The band was tight and played well. Most surprising, though, was that the mix–and the way the sound worked in the space–was just about perfect, at least from where I was. Very balanced and clear vocals.
They played a lot of my favorites: “Moving Picture, Silent Film”, “Your Rocky Spine” and “Pulling on a Line” among them. Overall, it didn’t blow me away, but I was really glad I went. A nice set of gorgeous folk music.
It’s called sarcasm.
Thanks, Kate. Usually people have some hint in tone or expression that it’s sarcastic rather than completely straight-faced yelling at the audience to “shut the fuck up!” (long pause…laugh) That’s all I’m saying.
Someone in the front row told me to tell everyone to shut up, so I did. After I said shut the fuck up, I recall laughing and saying that I was just kidding and that it is Friday, so have a good time.
It was the delivery rather than what you said. I got the intention.
But, regardless, that this is what I remember about the show is telling.