Review: Mr. Blotto’s Blottopia Ten

The second day of Blottopia in its hairy entirety clocked in at a lengthy 254 minutes with the first two sets read like a more standard performance with plenty of highlights in its own right. The original song standouts include a tune I had not heard before called Low Loretta, which sounds a lot like a second cousin to Loose Lucy and the upbeat Long Honeymoon.

Later, the section sandwiched between halves of Bob Dylan’s Quinn the Eskimo provided a welcome laugh courtesy of a freestyle rap. Blotto’s rap segments are akin to watching the drunken guy in jeans ski a double black diamond from the chairlift; speeding full steam into uncharted territory, never falling and eliciting huge cheers from the onlookers.

After closing down set two with a five minute romp through one of their hardest rockers Almost, the band left the crowd waiting in anticipation before returning to the stage for the encore, and the album breakout.

“I’ve got a CD I’d like to play for you.”

Pulsing beat? Check. Clap Track? Check. Familiar acoustic two chord progression? Check. Psycho Killer? Check.

That’s right, for the second Blottopia in a row the band selected a live album. Only this time, it was arguably the best live album ever made: Stop Making Sense.

Generally speaking, the overall take on the Talking Heads classic live album made famous by the Jonathan Demme film of the same name sounds terrific. The vocals are solid and sound remarkably similar to Byrne’s at times. As always with Blotto, they pay meticulous attention to detail, with great tone mimicry and the additional of female backing vocalists really solidifying the interpretation.

The most creative adaptation would have to be the clever Girlfriend is Better, which shifts midway into a sultry piano bar jazz sound, complete with walking bassline, followed by a exploratory drum improvisation before bursting back into the original feel for a climactic ending. The two catchiest tunes on Stop Making Sense, This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody) and Once in a Lifetime both shine with This Must Be the Place played, for lack of a better word, really floaty.

The penultimate jam song, Crosseyed and Painless, really highlights just how influenced the band and lead guitarist Mark Hague are by the Dead as the song takes on a whole different feeling from Phish and more modern-era jambands. In particular, the lead guitar relies more on the fret hand than the pick hand, a bit of a Garcia trademark, and of course they devote a hefty block of time to drums. The song takes on a real woozy strut feel as opposed to the angular funk sound normally applied to this tune.

Finally, keeping with the tradition, Blotto closed down the shop with a new original entitled, It’s Surreal Good Time. Following Wilson’s Lament and Peter Today from the past two festivals, both songs written about the material played for the cover album, this song presumably pays homage to Stop Making Sense, although the connection is less clear this time around. Still, the song closes things out in style, putting the lid on yet another inspired performance that demonstrated yet again one hell of a work ethic from Mr. Blotto.

It looks as though Chicago finally realizes what they have in this rare band as Blottopia Ten brought in its first ever sell-out crowd. By the sound of it, this won’t be the last.

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2 Responses

  1. What? No mention of the Meddle rap? This was one of Meddle’s (he’s a little Bolger) finest works to date. For those of you who were not there, download this and listen to the poetry stylings of Meddle.

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