CONCERT REVIEW: Kurt Vile/Pissed Jeans/Meg Baird @ First Unitarian Church 6/12

Opening with "Society is My Friend," Kurt Vile & the Violators ripped through most of Smoke Ring for My Halo.

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CONCERT REVIEW: Kurt Vile/Pissed Jeans/Meg Baird @ First Unitarian Church 6/12

POSTED: Tuesday, June 14, 2011, 1:00 PM

Filed Under: Music Concert Review

Overheard: “This is the only venue around that the building sweats.”

The sweating started when Philly folk artist, Meg Baird drew the crowd right to the front of the stage as if magnetized by her soothing voice, simple guitar playing and soft harp accompaniment. Her short set didn’t do her justice, since her somewhat long songs only let her get through a few. Taking things into a dramatically different direction, Allentown’s Pissed Jeans hit Church-goers right between the ears with their hardcore-punk and guitar noise. Suddenly people were scaling the house speakers next to the stage, jumping into a circle pit and swinging their arms at any crowd-surfing body that happened to cross their path. Pissed Jeans seemed to grab most of the remaining air in the room and choke it right out of its lungs, forcing almost everyone out onto the street for a short breath before the main show.

Opening with “Society is My Friend,” Kurt Vile & the Violators ripped through most of Smoke Ring For My Halo. “Ghost Town,” from Halo, was a standout moment, staying true to Vile’s signature spacey sound with little low-end, feeling like it was cascading down from the ceiling. Wait, that was just sweat. “Freeway” and “Hunchback,” were received pretty warmly by the hometown crowd, happy to hear some deeper cuts. “Any requests?” Kurt asked mid-show while tuning his guitar. A barrage of song titles ensued. “Don’t worry, I knew what I was going to play all along.” Things got weird as the show ended with a wall of sound proceeding, “Freak Train,” in which Kurt wasn’t even visible through some of as he was on his knees playing with a variety of effects pedals on the stage.

“Thanks for sweating it out with us tonight,” said Jesse Turbo, guitarist and saxophonist for the Violators. Apparently it was pretty hot on stage too, despite the stripped down look they had without any stage lights, only the soft white house lights of the Church.

Posted by Brian Wilensky @ 1:00 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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