POLVO: Subterranean 7/25/08

[jff]

My wife and I decided that seeing the reunited Polvo in a smoke free venue was a good enough reason for a three day Chicago vacation. We flew up from Atlanta to Chicago last Wednesday and sayed downtown at the Conrad Hotel (super-good deal through Priceline). We arrived early enough to fit in a stroll down most of the Magnificent Mile and a dinner before sunset (dinner at Rosebud on Rush...good stuff, way too much food). After dinner we checkout out the water tower and went to the top of the Hancock building. We intended to hang out and watch the Navy Pier fireworks from the Hancock, but it was too crowded and noisy to hang out, plus the fireworks weren't for another 90 minutes. The view from up there is amazing, though. We walked to Navy Pier, but we were tired after a long day and went back to the hotel after taking some photos.

 

Thursday we made an unplanned visit to the public library, which was really beautiful. Next we went to Grant Park to see the fountain and Millenium Park to see the music pavillion and the kidney bean (sorry, I know that's not the real name), which was possibly the highlight of the trip.

 

Had lunch at Ada's Famous Deli. I'm pretty sure Ada was waiting on us. Delicious. Too much food, natch.

 

Then we went to the Art Institute...huge letdown as the most exciting work is not on display, even though they have thousands of feet of empty wall space that could serve as a temporary display while the new wing is being built. Full price = B.S. To be fair, we did get to see a few pieces we enjoyed by artists whose work I don't believe I've seen in other museums (de Kooning, for one).

 

After the museum we sampled some vodka at Russian Tea Time.

 

Then we met up w/ a family member we were staying with for the next two nights in Wicker Park.

 

Friday we walked around Wicker Park. I bought the new Dr. Dog cd and a magazine to read on the airplane at Reckless Records. Later we went to Oak Park for the Frank Lloyd Wright tour.

 

After all that, we had a few hours to rest before the Polvo concert.

 

Arrived at the Subterranean mid way through the second opening band's set (perfect timing). As we entered it was nice to see the set times for each band posted on the wall (In Atlanta, you never know what time bands will play, or even the order of bands). Opening band sounded good. The show was sold out and I heard there were a lot of out of town folks in attendance. We managed to get close to the stage for the first half. I can't post a setlist, but their first three tunes were Fractured Like Chandeliers, Feather of Forgiverness, Enemy Insects. A solid start, for sure. They still sound amazing, even though they called it quits a decade ago and they're on their third drummer. Ash Bowie was having trouble with his wrist (carpal tunnel, I guess), but his playing didn't seem to suffer. Several songs had been significantly reworked (Every Holy Shroud, for instance), for better or worse, but much of the material stayed true to the album versions. They played tunes from all their albums, but their first two albums ("Cor-Crane Secret" and "Today's Active Lifestyles") I felt were under-represented. Their current drummer is probably technically better than the original drummer. He showed it, unnecessarily. (The same might be true for the drummer who played on their last tour and part of their last album). The absence of the original drummer leaves something out of the equation (or perhaps adds too much to the equation) and limits them to being only very good to excellent, rather than magical. No complaints, though. They really sounded very good...maybe better than the last time the played in Atlanta ten years ago.

 

Anyone else attend this show, or other shows on their current tour?

 

Anyone attend their basketball game against the Touch and Go folks?

[jff]

I forgot to mention...

 

In addition to their show at the Subterranean, Polvo also played on Saturday at the Wicker Park Festival. Unfortunately I had to fly home earlier that day, so I missed out on seeing them a second time.

[myboyblue]

I've never heard of POLVO but it sounds like you jammed in a lot of stuff during your visit. What did you think of Subterranean? Glad it was a good time.

[jff]

I've never heard of POLVO but it sounds like you jammed in a lot of stuff during your visit. What did you think of Subterranean? Glad it was a good time.

 

The Subterranean was perfectly suitable for this show. It's similar in size to a lot of Atlanta venues. Could have been better air conditioned, but that was the only thing I could find to complain about.

 

Polvo is a '90s band from Chapel Hill. Sort of a discordant, but melodic rock band. They never really made it big, but they put out five or six amazing albums in as many years. Shapes is their worst record. All the others are fantastic.

 

We definitely did a lot while we were in Chicago. It was a successful trip.

[VenusStopsTrain2]

If you and your spouse like Frank Lloyd Wright you should listen (on audiobook) or read the book Loving Frank by Nancy Horan...it's a really great way to get an idea of how he lived...it's based on his life and the newspaper articles that are talked about in the book are real and you can find them on Nancy's website for the book where you can look at them online! It's really a good story.

[jff]

you should listen (on audiobook) or read the book Loving Frank by Nancy Horan.

 

Cool, I'll look into that. Thanks for the tip.