Califone - Chicago, IL

It was a daunting experience going in. I'd heard nothing but passionate praise for the band, especially their live show, from folks whose musical opinion I value considerably, but I personally hadn't had the pleasure. I spent the early part of the evening with a friend in from New York. Jeff is not only a dear person to me, he happens to be a maniacal Califone fan, friend, collaborator and professional affiliate. He knows everything. I knew nothing. We go to the show together where I discovered what I guess I'd already anticipated - the sold-out crowd were absolutely savvy devotees, dead serious about the music and this live show, beer drinking and debauchery notwithstanding. And here I was to review it. So I pooped my pants a little bit in the face of such comparatively deft company, downed a shot of Jameson and opted to just embrace a naïve perspective and let the performance drench my senses.

Fallen Boy finished their set with an incessant and pretty annoying theremin. Chicago poet Thax Douglas then took the stage and said something undoubtedly poignant but the room didn't quiet down enough to hear him, nobody paid attention other than a guy to my left who shouted, "Get the old guy off the stage!" Now that was poetic.

Califone started with a two-man guitar duet, "Bottles and Bones," a surprisingly traditional rock and roll opener rife with focused, concentrated crescendo and decrescendo, and vocal impact not unlike J. Mascis. The crowd responded lovingly and the other musicians hopped up onstage. They cruised into a mellow place next and put the feelers out on "Burned by Christians," a song from their upcoming record. This one was a short violin-infused thrumming bit, which began to reveal the expansive landscape on which these multi-instrumentalists meander. Just getting settled in for a little Allman/Dead sort of creative vacation, the third song turned my attention as it sported a straight-out twang, though it remained equally slow and contemplative, with some interesting pizzicato.

Their stylistic range is vast and I'd expected less. I expected the edgy sound experiment, and I got it, but I did not expect these guys to just simply rock out. And they did, boy howdy. As the set went on, I noticed that they seemed to enjoy slowing down, spreading out, paying careful attention to every single note, swell, and tempo change quite individually, blowing up these moments with near head-pounding scrutiny just to the very point of being mundane, of making me sleepy. Then they'd just fucking rock. Right then. This was incredibly calculated and very effective, this murmur and monsoon, a ride from the thready and complex, to pummeling, throbbing rock and roll momentum, then straight back down to slow, to country, bluegrass even, exposing soulful roots. I was completely entranced. The audience was satiated by a triple encore of their favorites, going out on an energetic three-chord big rock note with "Your Golden Ass." Broke, rich, easy, complicated, accessible and drizzled with corn squeezins, Califone's show left me surprised, impressed, properly rocked and a little bit deft.