I went to see Osees tonight at Red Rocks with a disc golf buddy from the neighborhood. His musical knowledge outstrips mine. The kind of cat who you share your hidden gem band, and he turns it back on you like 'yeah, and the drummer had a side project with the guy from _____, that was incredible'.
We tailgated and decided to skip the opening band. He said that Wilco and Sleater-Kinney had a Red Rocks show. But what a weird pairing, right? Yeah. He knew about YFH but didn't know as much or really anything about A Ghost is Born. His catnip is noise rock, like Big Black and Helmet and Shellac and so on. So I turned him on to A Ghost is Born and he shared Tom Waits swordfishtrombone. This was our pregame. If Wilco has the same lineup for this show (ie if Nels Cline is going to join the band on guitar) we are def going.
So the Osees show.
So if you don't have any clue, if you like punk / hard rock meets stoner rock and maybe some jam band shit, you'd like them. Live in SF is their staple sound. There's the list, you can get the gist of it from spotify or y/t or w/e.
As far as this show goes, I'd like to give it a kind of critic's review. I never get to put on my critics hat and go ham, and I'd like to.
The first thing I'll say is that the guitarist and bassist both were barefoot. Maybe the drummers and the keyboard player too, but I couldn't see.
This has already gone off the rails, my review, this isn't what a critic does: points out barefootness.
Speaking of going off the rails, the Osees went off the rails a few times and I appreciated that. No script. Authentic. On stage halfway through the show: "ok, here's our meat and potatoes that you actually came to hear. oh shit, I shouldn't say that up here. It's ok, I'm still learning." Something about how intensely hard-working and consummate this band is, coupled with this kind of genuine humility, it made me feel so welcome to listen to them. Because they would go off the rails musically--the damned dude was tapping his guitar amp cable that he'd unplugged on one of the drummer's cymbals ffs--and this is a pretentious experimental thing, a possible waste of everyone's time--but it was within the context of 'we expect this song will land in the 5-15 minute range, we are taking liberties and maybe it works maybe not'.
I was so happy for that. Real live music. And not just live music, but a live show from a five-piece meant to crash race cars at high speed. What I mean by that is this band has an all-time rhythm section. The kind of grooves that the Grateful Dead would have sacrificed a '79 Westphalia for. You never want them to end, and they make you want to dance. But then there's this Bauhaus screechy guitar thing happening. Within a rumba. I don't know, it's hard to explain and you had to be there.
But that rhythm section made you want to jam if you could. Just too choice, the grooves. So they could take all kinds of chances, musically, the keyboard player and guitarist. There was no way they could f*** it up. They had that rhythm section.
Anyways.
Good show, I came twice.
Oh, actually, I have a story.
So it's general seating and we scooted down a few rows. I had just begun standing by this person who was sitting down and I feel something on my knee. I think she hit my knee, as in she struck it in anger. Then she makes this super exaggerated 'I'm so fed up with you people' theatrical slide a foot away from me. Keep in mind the ampitheater is about 50% or so for covid, maybe slightly less.
I looked at her and she stared death upon me. I said 'I'm sorry am I in your space?' and she was very much in distress about the situation and hateful of me in particular, she said something something 'we are in the middle of a pandemic' and so I retreated a row or two away. She ended up leaving the show about 30 minutes early. I don't get it. She had to know what she was getting into, yet she seemed so desperately unhappy. I felt bad for her.
One dude was high af and fell down some stairs. He was a bit chunky. He popped up and said 'I'm good!'. We all exchanged a look and agreed that no, he actually probably wasn't.
tl;dr: show kicked ass