Though I'm sad to admit it was my first time there, the little lady and I caught a great show last night at the Cedar Cultural Center, conveniently located across the street. And I must say, I was blown away by the space. It's an awesome venue, not to mention a non-profit run by volunteers focused solely on putting great shows for affordable prices (for example, Billy Bragg will be there in June for $20...can't beat that).
But last night's show--unexpectedly one of the best shows I've sen in a long while. It may just be the fact that I really haven't been getting out to shows much lately, but it was a doozy.
Opening Acts:
Angelo Spencer: The first of two French acts, which was the first unexpected part of the show. A typical single guitar player with a bass drum and hi-hat for accompaniment...think Joe Buckyourself, but more folky. Pretty good, but fairly generic. Also, at several points in time during the show, he insulted the English system of measurement. Look, I sez it before, and I'll sez it again: my car gets 40 rods to the hogs head and that's the way I likes it, dammit.
L'Orchidée d'Hawaï: Go find their CD right now and buy it. These guys blew me away, both with an incredible stage presence and some of the best music I've heard in a long while. They're kind of a surf/country/doo wop sound...like Dick Dale meets early Buddy Holly, but French. Songs ranged from bittersweet broken heart fair, to happy frolicking good times, to covers of obscure Japanese surf ballad instrumentals, to traditional Italian love songs. Do yourself a favor and go to orchidee-hawai.com right now and check them out. I've already listened to the CD start to finish twice this morning. These guys may have been an opening act, but they completely owned the show. It's a fairly rare occasion when the audience begs the opening act for an encore, but is fine with it when the headliner announces she's done.
Headliner: Kimya Dawson
I know there's a bit of Kimya Dawson backlash after the surprising success of Juno and it's equally surprisingly successful soundtrack, but it's not because of anything she's done, it's just a standard hipster pissing contest. She was mostly doing songs off of her upcoming children's album Alphabutt and some old classics. She was pretty good throughout the night (though I was hoping for an update on her rumored deal to be a semi-regular on Sesame Street, but it never came), but she's not much of a live performer. As Krissy pointed out, it's fun to listen to her albums, but she brings pretty much nothing to the live show. Just sitting there motionless with her eyes closed as she rattes off song after similar-sounding song. I don't mean to say it wasn't good, but by the end, it started to drag a wee bit. Maybe it's just because it was late on a wednesday night.
Overall, though, a fine show. Incidentally, the Cedar is in the midst of a huge push for donations (again, they're a non-profit, so they largely subsist on donations) and have a matching donation program this month, so your dollars count double. It's a great venue putting on some cool shows and it would suck to lose it, so chip in a few bucks if you can.
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