Cake, Winterpills @ Main Street Armory

The night after seeing Ryan Adams I made it out again to see Cake playing right across the street at the Main Street Armory. I had never seen Cake and pretty much know next to nothing of their music. I got a pair of free tickets so it was a no brainer to check it out. Going solo, I sold the other out front for $20. the same price I had picked up my Cardinals ticket out front the night before, so the weekend was free!

As I walked in the opening band took the stage. Listed as special guest on the ticket, wasn't sure who it would be. As they took the stage I thought they looked familiar. Is this the Winterpills? Not a second later they announced that they were indeed the Winterpills from Northampton Mass. What a total and pleasant surprise. I have seen them before and have their first two albums. It was their first of a string of shows opening for Cake. I am the last person to be comparing anyone to Elliot Smith (especially with what I am about to say) but whenever I hear him I think of the Winterpills, so for any normal person who knows Elliot Smith, I would say the Winterpills sound a lot like him. Songwriting and vocals are their strengths. They've got a new album coming out, this show being the first time it was available for purchase, kinda wish I had picked it up.



The Winterpills played a nice 40m set, followed by a painfully long 45m break. Ugh. Sunday night, c'mon! Cake finally did take the stage. I thought they had a nice and unique sound, really liked what the trumpet brought to the table. I thought it would just be a here and there type thing, but it made it into nearly every song. The music was generally funky and danceable, with completely off beat and strange lyrics, from what I could hear and understand, not to mention the strange delivery of said lyrics. A ways into the set they broke into a decent version of War Pigs which got the crowd (surprisingly young crowd I might add) worked up pretty good.



After that, John McCrea made an interesting comment that we wouldn't have the armory for this very show had it not been for war. Then they kicked out another cover, Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town, most notably by Kenny Rogers, which revolves around the Korean War. This was a better cover I thought. But then after the banter got weirder and more annoying. McCrea decreed it the saddest song ever, and asked how everyone was doing. Crowd roared. Well, you've got a roof over your head and running water, McCrea continued. He then quizzed the audience as to the percentage of the world without running water and made the crowd raise their hands to answer instead of screaming it out. Once someone guessed right they were invited on stage to claim their prize which was the apple tree which was sitting on stage. Then McCrea went on to say how we should all be friendly with this guy because once food becomes too expensive we are going to want his free fruit...we should all befriend some gardners he added. OK, this was all too much. Shut up and play your guitar as a much greater politically active musician once said. I stuck around for another tune but then decided it was time for bed. I'm glad I got to see what Cake was all about though, the musical part was quite enjoyable. And might I add the temperature was much more bearable then the last time I was there.

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals @ Auditorium Center

The curtain was down as the crowd waited for the Cardinals show to start last Saturday night. I didn't really notice it was down until it rose. I couldn't really remember the last time I was at a concert and the stage was left a mystery behind the curtain until the band took the stage. The reveal in this case was much more than I had in mind. 2 glowing blue neon roses on either side of a large cardinal symbol directly behind the drums hoisting a large gong in its belly. The gong would prove to be just for show unfortunately. A backdrop of plain white squares with a curvy finish at the top served as the palette for a well-choreographed lightshow. This is a Ryan Adams concert? I had only seen him once before (sometime between the releases of Cold Roses, Jacksonville City Nights, and 29), and I don't remember anything being on the stage for that show.

"We're the Cardinals, thanks for coming to the rock concert," was all Ryan said before launching into the first tune. Ok...that was kind of an odd thing to say.

But it all made sense soon enough. This WAS a rock concert. The stage set, the smoke machine constantly filling the stage with essence d'rock. And then of course the knee-buckling, back-arching, face-wrenching, neck-bobbing, guitar-raising, hair-flailing guitar jams. Chris Feinstein kept the low end in check while sporting a nice Larry Craig-esque stance, wide and low. Love when those bass players get down. Some old tunes were rocked out a little harder than usual, and the new tunes were just balls-out ragers. This new album should be pretty damn good. They tested and proved the theory that down-tempo can rock every bit as much as up-tempo.

Speaking of down-tempo, a few songs in came a cover of Oasis' Wonderwall. Not a favorite of mine, not even a song I admire. A song that I even had a hard time placing. I guessed that it was an Oasis tune and was mildly surprised to find out I was right. At any rate, point is, Ryan gave it the Cat Power treatment and it was freaking incredible. They played it very slooooowly, almost to a standstill. But it built up to a fantastic finish. It was one of those moments when you realize, this is the best this song could ever and will ever sound. It appears they're playing it at every show, check it out.

The band played a solid 90 minutes until Ryan announced, again, oddly as all heck, "We're going to break for about 5 minutes so you can get more alcohol, or soda, and then we will come back and play until curfew" Musically and visually it was a rock concert, but the stage banter needed some work. They took what turned out to be a very short break, played another 30 minutes and did not come back for an encore despite much pleading from the crowd. I am fine with no encore if you're going to play right up until the end, which they did, but it definitely left the crowd a bit disappointed. It was the exact opposite of the strategy employed by MMJ at Radio City earlier this year. MMJ played what amounted to a second set and called it an encore, Ryan played an encore and called it a second set. Whatever, I really thought the show was over after the first set so I left completely sated.

Download the previous night in Syracuse
(BTW, not often a band is willing to play Rochester AND Syracuse these days...)