Three peas in a pod: Yo La Tengo has made for a cohesive, ever-curious musical unit over its quarter century as a band.
Indie music heroes played an instrumentally tight, creatively meandering two-hour set at the on Saturday, leaving a fully packed house both elated and exhausted. Now in their 25th year together, the Hoboken trio have a cache of music that crosses and re-crosses genres but always remains within their own style. Their show featured Ira Kaplan’s signature reverb and tremolo-drenched guitar and overloud keyboards supporting his often sparse vocals, backed up by wife Georgia Hubley on drums and vocals and James McNew on bass and guitar.
Over the long set, they managed to touch on a pretty wide swath of that musical cache, and more than a few times ended up on some long-winded jammy, psychedelic and noisy jazz constructions. They played a few off the latest record, “Popular Songs,” including “Here to Fall,” “Periodically Double or Triple,” — a particularly catchy blues-tinged pop tune — and the epic “And the Glitter Is Gone.”
They turned the latter into an even longer version live than its nearly 16-minute long recorded version, as Kaplan seemed to lose himself in long, feedback and jerky swirl guitar journeys, contorting around the stage. They also played plenty of their smart indie pop from years past, including a brilliant cover of the Only Ones’ “The Whole of the Law,” NRBQ’s “Magnet” — Hubley walked out from behind the drum kit and took the main mic at center stage for both of these — and “Sugarcube.”
Sadly, the only part of the band’s ouevre that was underrepresented was their slower, quieter stuff. Their only selection, a fantastic choice, was “Tears Are in Your Eyes,” sung mainly by Hubley as she played the drums. Quiet, almost sacred, the song nearly achieved its namesake in more than a few audience members. Throwing in a few of their signature understated, slow and passionate tunes would actually have been better than some of the hyper-extended jams. While avoiding the common pratfall of self-indulgence, some of Kaplan’s stringed wanderings were simply just too long.
Their cool and comfortable stage presence may have done just enough the counterbalance them, though, and warmed the audience back to the stage after each one. During their encore, they took requests (one of which was the “Magnet” cover), and ended the show with a fantastically bright version of “Be Thankful for What You Got.”
Hoboken, N.J.’s indie stars made sure we were all very thankful, and took obvious pleasure in doing it.
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Billy Thieme is a Denver-based writer, an old-school punk and a huge follower of Denver’s vibrant local music scene. Follow Billy’s explorations at , and his giglist at .
