Review: Vic Chesnutt @ Somerville Theater

In my limited experience, Vic Chesnutt’s stage banter alone is worth the price of admission. After his first of many on-stage belches, he started singing the word burrito over and over again and explained that it tastes just as good the second time around. After explaining that two of his band members were not at the show because they were getting flu shots up in Canada, he told the crowd “I don’t miss them.” And hands-down the best introduction of the night was to the song Philip Guston. Chesnutt explained,

This song is called Philip Guston. I love this painter. All the lyrics…you see I think Pitchfork accused this song of being…stupid. All the lyrics come from Phillip Guston. Either words on his paintings or titles of songs. It’s a heavy song – they’re fucking idiots.

Chesnutt’s band is powerful. It is the same band from his September release At The Cut. There were seven of them up there – four guitar players, bass, keyboards (she exclusively played a Korg CX-3 organ) and a drummer. I have no idea what the two missing members play, probably guitar – I could see this band having six guitars. The arrangements were dark and vaguely Post-Rock for brief periods of time, makes sense having your backing band made up of members of Fugazi and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The encore featured one song by the band and one song by Vic solo, the only solo performance of the night.

Jason Adler has already put this show up for download at bt.etree.org. I’m going to embed the opening song of the set titled Everything I Say:
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/vic.mp3]

As promised, here is this wacky infomercial for Clare & The Reasons New Album:

Tour Dates:
October 2009
23 – Ottawa, Ontario – Mavericks
24 – Montreal, Quebec – Ukrainian Federation
25 – Somerville, MA – Somerville Theatre
26 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
27 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
28 – Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church
29 – Baltimore, MD – Ottobar
30 – Washington, DC – Black Cat
31 – Wilmington, NC – The Soapbox

November 2009
1 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl
2 – Athens, GA – 40 Watt Club
4 – Newport, KY – Southgate House
5 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
6 – Detroit, MI – Detroit Institute of Arts
7 – Toronto, Ontario – Lee’s Palace
19 – Minneapolis, MN – Cedar Cultural Center
20 – Winnipeg, Manitoba – West End Cultural Centre
21 – Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – Amigos
22 – Edmonton, Alberta – McDougall United Church
23 – Calgary, Alberta – Knox United Church
25 – Victoria, British Columbia – Lucky Bar
26 – Vancouver, British Columbia – Red Room
27 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
28 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
30 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall

December 2009
1 – Los Angeles, CA – The Regent
2 – Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
4 – Denton, TX – Hailey’s
5 – Austin, TX – Central Presbyterian Church

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6 Responses

  1. Sounds great! Too bad there aren’t many touring acts that play in Nashville… it’s all mostly local artists.

    If you want to check out more indie music, Brite Revolution has tons of indie songs available for download. From artists like Joy Williams, Drew Holcom and the Neighbors, Lorien, and more. http://www.briterevolution.com

    Hope you’re able to check it out!

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