Starlight Ballroom

Philadelphia PA, 21st March 2006

Setlist

Inside the Golden Days of Missing You
Animal Shapes
Smith and Jones Forever
Pet Politics
I’m Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You
Random Rules
New Orleans
Horseleg Swastikas
Dallas
Trains Across the Sea
The Poor, the Fair and the Good
Black and Brown Blues
Slow Education
How Can I Love You (If You Won’t Lie Down)
Punks in the Beerlight

Encore

There Is a Place
Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed

Reviews

SD On the Road: Silver Jews in Philadelphia

Didn’t get to finish my thoughts on the Philly show before heading up to Baltimore last night for the finale of Joos Cruise 2K6. What a whirlwind week. Here’s a quick report on last night’s show in Philadelphia. Oh, and if you’re looking for 24 rankings, those will be along on Friday or so. I’m in Silver Jews mode now. Not even Jack Bauer can pull me out of that. I mean, I sit down Monday night to watch and I’m still in that afterglow of those first three Joos shows and then the first thing I see is dead Tony Almeida and man, that’s just a buzzkill. 24 takes a backseat. If I were to power rank things that take top priority, there’s just not much that would beat Inaugural Silver Jews Tour. Maybe Wizards in the NBA finals or the Pirates in the World Series. But those are about as likely as … well, a few years ago I would have said a Silver Jews tour, so, you never know.

We almost didn’t make this show thanks to the double whammy of an accident on Canal Road and downed power lines on MacArthur Boulevard. But things cleared up well enough and we ended up getting there while the openers were still on, even though it took us a good 5-10 minutes to realize they were actually playing. The Starlight Ballroom kind of sucks ass. It made me appreciate the sterile straightforwardness of Webster Hall. It’s just sort of a haphazard operation, which I guess was sort of endearing – no handstamps, they give you your own drink wristband, etc. But horribly disorganized bar service, you can’t take drinks to the main area (apparently a city-wide rule, but one nobody was following), etc. It’s also rather large – it seemed like an old roller rink or disco or something. So while there were tons of people, it was still pretty spread out. We ran into some fine folks before the show – DP, AA and the Good Guise. So that was fun.

As with most of the shows, it started off a bit shaky. This isn’t an insult, it’s just how it is. Again, I think a lot of this had to do with the venue. At the three previous shows, people were pretty packed in. Yes, there were some pockets of emptiness further back, but this sprawling room had people watching from all over. Just made it feel a little less intimate, to use a stupid word. Cassie seemed far less enthused from the outset, which I feel had to do with the crowd. She feeds off the energy – at two of the first three shows she mentioned how nice it was to see people dancing and moving around, and there was barely a head nod at this one. And she was certainly in more casual attire, too, so maybe she was just taking it easy for the night. My hunch was sort of confirmed when she didn’t sing on “Dallas” for the first time in four shows. I missed her, to be sure. That’s like my favorite part of the set, when she takes over on those parts. DCB’s got a great voice, but I think it works even better in contrast to another voice, especially a pretty, girly one, like Cassie or Malkmus.

Anyway, while the dead crowd might have made Cassie a bit reserved, it almost had the opposite effect on DCB. Here’s a half-baked theory (only kind I know) I’ll throw out there. DCB’s actually more comfortable with the dead, stoic crowds. Maybe I’m just basing this on my own experiences. The very few times we’ve played shows where there have been people in the audience hopping around and actually looking like they are enjoying themselves, it’s freaked me out. I’m like, “Why are those people doing that?” And it makes me even more likely to stand perfectly still and not make any eye contact with anyone. But the other 95% of the time, when people are just standing there staring at us blankly, now that I’m used to. That makes me feel comfortable. So maybe DCB’s the same way. Or, more likely, he’s just getting exponentially more comfortable up on stage as he plays more shows.

First highlight of the night was “I’m Getting Back,” which showed DCB’s newfound comfort up there on stage. It seemed at the first few shows he was more worried with simply getting all of the words out as opposed to actually putting some feeling into those words. But on this one he was definitely getting into it more, focusing just as much on the how he was saying it as opposed to the what. This run through of “New Orleans” was tons better than the disastrous attempt at Charlottesville but there was still something a bit lacking. I think with this band setup, those songs from Starlite just don’t work as well. Actually, that’s a bit presumptive of me to say since they are playing a grand total of two songs from that album and one of them sounds just fine. But my point is, “New Orleans” is sort of a shambly indie rock song, and this is not really a shambly indie rock band.

Putting “Trains” and “Poor/Fair/Good” back to back worked really well and this is when things started to pick up. Not pick up in the sense of rocking out, since those are obviously the two most hippie-fied numbers of the set, but man does it ever work. MZ shot me an eyeroll (shocking, I know) for my gentle swaying during these songs, but I just couldn’t help it. “Black and Brown Blues” was going along wonderfully until DCB decided to ditch the last verse. It was still quite good and it was pretty funny to hear him just talk over that last verse. Ending with “Punks” – as opposed to encoring with it like the previous shows – was a good call. That song is just impossible to mess up, we got a great fist pump at “Toulouse Latrec!” and it worked the crowd into at least a mini-frenzy. Encore was some pretty hot shit. Bobby N. let loose during “There Is a Place” and “Pony” was fantastic.

So yeah, from “Trains” on, this show was as good as anything from the first three nights, but overall it was probably the weakest of the bunch so far. Not that I would ever do something like rank the quality of the shows. That would be totally out of character. But this is part of the fun of going to a whole bunch of shows. Even seeing the band on what could be referred to as somewhat of an “off” night, I had a blast, and it was fun to see them continue to work out the kinks and get more comfortable on stage. Here’s a review from some Philly paper, and I think the last line captures it well. ‘David Berman sure had fun.” That makes it worthwhile on its own, right? I also bought one of them fancy $20 trucker hats after the show. I couldn’t resist. OK, Baltimore report will hopefully be up later this afternoon/evening. I don’t want to give away spoilers but … hot damn. Hot. Fucking. Damn. -DM