Chicago's indie pop outfit, Minor Characters opened the night with a strange blend of old school, sock-hop era rock n roll and ragged indie pop cool. Songs like "Burden" sailed along with wispy falsetto verses and breezily flickering guitars, leading into a strangely out-of-place melodic surfer rock hook. The half-hour set followed much in the same direction, with half of the material leaving you longing for more from the quartet, and the other half wondering what kind of band they were. Ultimately, they proved a solid live band with an interesting sound worth getting to a venue early to catch.
- The Lonely Forest
The slightly mismatched opener, The Lonely Forest took the stage after the even further out-of-place DJ blasting bass-thumping tunes; present thanks to this being the 'Jagermeaster Music Tour'. The band's brand of anxious, cathartic indie rock works well live, but those crowding the venue in search of Portugal. The Man's jam band stylings seemed unimpressed. It was not fault of the Washington quartet, who played a solid forty minutes attempting to move the stoic Chicago crowd in vain. As much as we love both bands, some openers are better matched to the headliners than others. Even if this was not as strange as the time we saw A Place To Bury Strangers open for Sea Wolf, a more psychedelic-leaning opener would have probably suited the crowd better.
John Van Deusen's earnest tenor cut straight through the shaggy swirl of the band on opening "Woe Is Me.. I Am Ruined". Between their fantastic call to the outdoors, "Turn Off This Song And Go Outside", and freewheeling "Tunnels" the band found time to squeeze in a few new tracks, with "Last Time I Say Your Name" fitting in especially well with shimmering riffs and thundering beat. Closing "We Sing In Time" left us hoping the band returns to the city soon, even if the one-track minded crowd did not seem to care.
[caption id="attachment_103" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Portugal. The Man"]
[/caption]With the sold out venue rapidly filling up the crowd rebelled against the odd fit of the DJ, booing him off the stage as he announced that Portugal. The Man would be starting shortly. Perhaps a remnant of the DJ's between-sets sound, the bass was much louder than the rest of the band in the sound mix. John Gourley's seared falsetto and the guitars on the opening "All Your Light (Times Like These)" were swallowed whole by the rumbling bass groove. The placement of Gourley at stage right and, bassist, Zachary Carothers was ironically accurate to the mix, rendering the crunchy stomp of the solo pointless. Having the experienced the start of their Lollapalooza set with similar issues, and hearing the balance corrected halfway through the second song at the outdoor festival, the issue was not that alarming.
Unfortunately, things did not clear up any with the oppressive bass line of "The Woods" laying a smothering blanket on the rest of the typically fantastic band. Though the issue should have become clear to the folks at the soundboard when the acoustic based "So American" sounded pristine, the rest of the band's set was a mixed bag of rich rockers badly damaged by the murky sound and great sounding lighter tunes more forgiving of the gaffe. The band hit their amazing The Satanic Satanist album hard on the setlist, but songs like the chugging soul of "Work All Day" and dazzling "The Sun" were sloppy disasters.
The bits of the jammed out songs that you could decipher sounded great, but the overstuffed sound turned Gourley's bluesy vocals and the funky percussion on showpiece "Devil", with a dash of The Beatles' "Helter Skelter" mixed in, into nearly unlistenable slush. The depth and texture of the band's killer album tracks were washed out on the creaky groan of "M80" and grumbling groove of "Head Is A Flame (Cool With It)". At least the soaring "People Say" and closing "Sleep Forever" showed first-time PTM concertgoers what they were missing the rest of the night.
Having been to The Vic plenty over the last decade, we must offer that this is the first time we have ever had sound issues at the excellent venue. We have also seen PTM half a dozen times at this point, and outside of the outdoor setup of Lollapalooza, have never heard them sound anything other than stellar. The band's consistency and musicianship on stage has landed them near the top of our list of favorite live bands. The combination of PTM's dizzying psychedelic rock and one of our favorite venues seemed like a perfect match, but somehow things went badly awry, leaving us unexpectedly disappointed.
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