Live like a gypsy and you're always at home.
Concert Review
Devotchka, My Brightest Diamond
December 2nd , 2006
Logan Square Auditorium, Chicago, IL
or 'Live like a gypsy and you're always at home.'
Recently five of my close friends and I all piled in my little compact car and headed to Chicago in the freezing cold to see a band that only Katie and I had ever heard. I called Mike up at 5 and said I was going to Chicago to see a band and I'll be over to pick him up in 20 minutes. Harm even travelled a total of 6 hours one-way to see this unknown band with us! But that's what I love about all my friends. They are willing to be adventurous and trust that whatever happens, wherever we end up, we can have a good time.
And that sort of gypsy spirit of adventure and wandering was fitting because the band we were going to see was DevotchKa, part of indie music's gypsy revival subset. Yes, I told my friends we were going to hear gypsy music and they didn't bat an eye. How cool is that?
Listening to DevotchKa, you'd swear they hail from the Balkans -- some unidentifiable, hazy, borderless section of Eastern Europe -- because of the Russian-influenced fiddles and accordians, but then the lead singer will belt out a loud, crooning wail in Spanish or French over his vintage microphone and now you're hearing Italian mandolin, or even a sousaphone. Yes, like the Gypsies, DevotchKa are hard to pin down and categorize. They actually started in Colorado. They took their name from the Stanley Kubrik film A Clockwork Orange's faux-Russian word for "girl". And if you've seen Little Miss Sunshine, you've heard instrumental version's of their whole album "How It Ends."
But my concert buds didn't know any of this.
And it didn't matter.
The most action my backseat has seen in a while. (See me all smiles there?)
How cute is that?
The opener for the night was My Brightest Diamond, whom I'd seen in September when she opened for Sufjan Stevens. (Read my review here.) But even in those short months, I could sense real growth in leader Shara Worden. She started out with her cover of Nina Simone's Feelin' Good (listen) which immediately hushed the crowd and set the mood. From her classically-trained, mesmerizing voice, everyone could tell she is someone to watch on the music scene. If any of the audience didn't yet have her debut album Bring Me The Workhorse, they certainly were going to rectify that after this performance. She dazzled us with French covers of Kurt Weill and even a surprise cover of tainted love. And of course, she finished with Freak Out, where her and the band could just go wild. If you're new to her, try out Something of An End (listen) and you wont be sorry.
Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond.
(courtesy of p-fork)
When DevotchKa took the stage, in haunting darkness, we were ready to be transported, to be nomads, to be carefree and lawless, to feel pain and to drink it away.
And we weren't disappointed.
Nick Urata of DevotchKa.
DevotchKa's bass/sousaphone player.
The glowy sousaphone.
The gypsy violin/accordian player.
The drums/percussion/trumpet player.
Nick Urata playing the theremin. The Theremin makes spooky sci-fi noise depending on how close an object gets to it.
Our faces in the crowd.
(courtesy of bausertron)
Highlight of the night for me, was of course, How It Ends (listen) but this song is a ghost for me. It is forever tied in my mind to a friend that gave up on us. It's his swan song. His funeral dirge. The cadence that night beared him on a pyre of my denial and finally set his ashes free. DevotchKa soared and howled and I was nothing but relieved. I understand the gypsy notion of freedom. To roam, unfettered and unaccountable. And now I can let go. Salud!
(courtesy of bausertron)
My fellow gypsies. (Mike's first concert ever!)
Posted by heydomsar
2006-12-11
go back | random brainstorm | go forth
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