Wow, that show was fantastic. Check out a couple of the songs:

The Fox / Wilderness / Burn, Don't Freeze / Light-Rail Coyote / Rollercoaster / Modern Girl / O₂ / What's Mine Is Yours / Was It a Lie? / Oh! / Let's Call It Love / Night Light / Jumpers / Entertain // Little Babies / I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight / The End of You / Words and Guitar // Get Up / Step Aside

I set the levels too high (when will I learn?), so there's noticeable distortion on the vocals, especially when Corin launches into her trademark howling. Nonetheless, I'm pretty satisfied with it overall. But if I had the money I'd buy some better mics.

So...the last time I was at the Riv was when leahrosmerta and I saw TMBG there in October 200...1? it must have been. I got there a bit before doors opened and snagged a lovely (free) parking spot right across the street, got in line and checked out the crowd. There were a lot of girls there. :P

I'd decided beforehand to be lame and sit up in the balcony rather than stand on the floor as I usually do, because I wanted to find out how my recording would sound if I made it upstairs. I actually got there early enough that I probably could have scored a spot along the barrier downstairs, but I decided to stick with my original plan. This plan seemed to go slightly awry at first as the security initially didn't permit us to sit in the very front section of the balcony, saying it was restricted to VIPs, but after just a few minutes they opened it after all and I managed to get a good spot in the front row, slightly to stage left (pretty much directly in front of Corin). The annoying thing about the balcony which I had forgotten is that there's a couple of pretty thick pipe-rails across the front, so I either had to sit way forward or slouch way down to see without a having a big black bar across my field of vision. (I was pretty sure that standing would not be an option much appreciated by the people behind me.)

"Faded grandeur" would be just about the phrase to describe the Riv. It's got lovely moldings and marble staircases and crystal chandeliers, and violet paint that's chipping with big ugly white patches painted over where the violet has chipped too much. I stretched out my legs and waited, occasionally leaning over the rail to see all the girlheads below. The opener Dead Meadow came on and played. I wasn't particularly impressed with them but I was very amused by the smoke machine that periodically spewed mystical clouds around the drummer. I noticed that tool Greg Kot settling into one of the VIP boxes about halfway through their second song. He didn't bother to clap at any point during the evening (including during Sleater-Kinney's set), but he did deign to bob his head not quite in time to the music every once in a while. (I wasn't surprised to see that he wrote a glowing review of the show in the Tribune.)

Dead Meadow finally left and took their smoke machine and weird psychedelic green lights with them. There was a security guy standing just a few feet away and it was pretty well-lit in there, so I hesitated to set up my recording gear and in the end couldn't quite get it all ready in time. Then when S-K came out it suddenly got really dark and so I cut off a bit of the first song and, as I mentioned, had the levels set too high. I couldn't really see the screen so I just left everything as it was, which turned out to be a mistake. Next time I'm bringing a flashlight.

Anyway. Some serious rocking occurred. Janet's drumming is incredible, and I wanna be your Carrie Brownstein. They didn't talk much but when they did Carrie did most of it; for example, she told us she loves Stevie Nicks. I was wondering if they'd actually do all eleven minutes of Let's Call It Love. They did. The second half of the song was basically Carrie and Janet controlling the room while Corin stood nearby like, "I'll just do my thing over here." And, like, wow.

I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is apparently a new one they've just recently started doing. Janet has a really lovely voice. Words and Guitar was absolutely fantastic; even before they had finished it I was thinking, "This has got to be the last song, they can't possibly end in any better way." And at other shows on this tour they've generally been doing only one encore. But after another couple minutes of furious applause they came back out. Carrie said that she had actually had a plate of food in her hand, thinking her evening was over; but we brought them back out. Not that she seemd to mind really. Step Aside was a pretty good finisher as well. I love the part when Corin shouts out to the other ladies; they looked like they were having fun during it too.

It had been a couple years since they'd toured the midwest last; I hope they make it back sooner than that. And I'll stay on the floor next time; I did enjoy the show from the balcony, but I know I would have enjoyed it even more on the floor, where there was a lot more energy. Also I kinda wish I'd taken my camera; I left it at home because I figured I wouldn't be able to get good pictures from upstairs, but I think they might have been okay since Sleater-Kinney, unlike most rock bands, seem to like to have their stage well-lit.

Last note: unless a better source comes up, I will be making the whole show available (in lossless format) in the near future, so watch this space if you're interested. And if you like the recording, go see them yourself next time. They're definitely worth it.