My one CMJ show: Oakley Hall at The Mercury Lounge on Saturday October 26, 2008

So I haven't updated this thing in about two weeks. That's pretty lame. But I haven't been to any concerts in a while, and that's usually what I write about. But I have some CD reviews I've been working on. Basically I've been lazy.

But I went to a concert last night, so I should write that one up. Even though I have no pictures. But it was part of CMJ, and there were lots of photographers there, so I'm sure you can find plenty of pictures.

I think there were about 5 bands on the schedule last night, but we arrived in time to only see two of them, and to be honest, that was about 2 too many for me. I didn't catch the first two bands' names, and I'm really not interested in looking them up. Not really much to say about them. They were two very bland middle of the road indie rock groups that each had about 2 catchy songs. Somehow they both had fans. Whatever.

So how was Oakley Hall? I haven't seen them since their February show at the Knitting Factory which is too long for a band that supposedly lives in the same city as me. At the last show, violinist Claudia Mogel and guitarist Fred Wallace didn't join the band until the 2nd half of the set. I was lucky enough to get a chance to speek to Rachel Cox (vocals, guitar, piano) before the show, and apparently they aren't really in the band anymore. Which is a shame, since they're both pretty awesome. Thankfully they were in the band last night for the entire set. Also included in last night's lineup was Steve Goulding from The Mekons. I don't have much else to say on this subject other than that it was really cool. He was also a more interesting drummer than the other two I've seen play in Oakley Hall. Well no shit. He's played with Graham Parker and The Mekons and has decades of touring experience.

The set was surprising for how unsurprising it was. Here's my best recollection of the setlist:

Highway
Light of My Love
Lazy Susan
No Dreams
Rue The Blues
El Dorado
Confidence Man
Livin in Sin in the USA
Volume Rambler
New Song?

Looks mostly right. I think I might be leaving something out, but that would be one song, tops. Anyway, pretty much all of the songs were ones I've seen them play at least several times, and with maybe two exceptions, the set included all of my favorites. It definitely included all of the good songs I usually expect them to play. And there wasn't anything in the set that I disliked.

As for the performance, I was pretty pleased. The band seemed a bit more animated than I'd seen them recently, and there was a bit more musical improvisation on a few of the songs (especially "Volume Rambler" than I'd seen previously. I thought the last song could have benefited from an absence of drums, but it was nice to see Steve Goulding keeping up with the band and clearly improvising his way through a few sections successfully. It was a fun show. If only these people would play more shows, we'd probably see something truly exciting.