Liaden
Paddy Moloney is a clumsy emcee, but as the heart of The Chieftains’ live show, he’s a tremendous musician and an unstoppable comic personality.
A couple of songs into his band’s show Tuesday at the Paramount Theatre, Maloney introduced their special guests for the tour: Liaden, an all-female septet playing traditional Irish music. With The Chieftains looking on admiringly, Sile Denvir, Elaine Cormican, Valerie Casey, Deirdre Chawke, Claire Dolan and Catherine Clohessy led into a mini-set with the tapper “P Is for Paddy.” (It wasn’t about Moloney.)
The song was as striking as the group. Played on accordion, flute, fiddle and harp, and accented by subtle Irish stepdancing, that song proved Liaden a potent choice for The Chieftains’ tour. Paddy and his buddies are still making great music and spreading the joy, but the Irish- born boys won’t be making these stateside jaunts forever – and they need to pass the torch to other groups.
Ricardo Baca
Rabbit Is a Sphere
The two men and two women who make up Rabbit Is a Sphere don’t pose like rock stars.
Funny thing is: They actually are rock stars, as evidenced by their show Jan. 12 at the Hi-Dive. Who needs ironic T-shirts, pretentiousness or expensive haircuts when you have a solid set of fearless rock ‘n’ roll careening into philosophically contemplative pop?
When singer-guitarist Robert Rutherford tears into “American Lust” and demands that you “Put down your guns, baby, we’re in love,” you set your beer somewhere safe and live your life out loud because punk rock is alive. When Natalie Winslow tells the “happily ever after” story of “Cough and Convince,” you block out the obnoxious conversation in your left ear and take in her story of extremities: the involved and the apathetic.
The band never strikes a pose, and its honest portrayal of what rock ‘n’ roll can be is refreshing.
Rabbit Is a Sphere plays Feb. 2 at the Oriental Theater. |Ricardo Baca
My Morning Jacket
If the Jan. 12 show at the Ogden Theatre was not oversold, it certainly felt that way. It was the first of two local performances by the Louisville indie-jam band My Morning Jacket, and the audience’s composition shows how far it has come.
The band has lately sounded like a Southern-fried hippie act, veering from its recorded versions into long, self-indulgent guitar solos. Granted, it’s not jam rock per se – eschewing jazzy chords and ridiculous tangents – but it felt more frat-party-oriented than Built to Spill, Band of Horses or other similar outfits.
The show was so packed with drunken, backward-baseball-cap types screaming over the music that my girlfriend and I could only endure a few songs. “Off the Record,” for example, sounded great with its clipped reggae beats and Jim James’ high, clear voice, and “What a Wonderful Man” was tighter than a corset. But fighting through hordes of jocks oblivious to the music was tiresome. |John Wenzel
Pee Pee
How cool is Pee Pee when the weakest song in its live set is a cover?
Not that the Denver band’s take on the Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra” is poorly played. It’s actually a lot of fun, especially because the silly song gets the soulful Pee Pee treatment with instrumentation plucked from the music closet, kitchen cabinet and garage pegboard.
When Pee Pee played as an octet Jan. 11 at the Bluebird, “Abracadabra” was outshone by the collective’s originals. Most of the time, the most recognizable song – i.e., a cover of an FM staple – spurs the strongest reaction. But “Over That Hill” is the band’s showstopper, with a driving acoustic backbone and a rootsy, back- porch chorus that insists, “Things are gettin’ better, I know that they will.”
It’s easy to believe it.
Pee Pee plays tonight at the Hi-Dive. |Ricardo Baca
