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Great American Music Hall April 17, 2004 Review by Jake Thomas With great anticipation and some apprehension, I was going to finally see the Twilight Singers. The anticipation was for finally getting to see Greg Dulli – the Afghan Whigs have been one of my favorite bands forever, but I never got to see them; finally I would get to see the man himself in all of his rock star glory. The apprehension was from some conflicting reports on the Twilight Singers live show, and Dulli’s performance and/or antics. Always safer to go in not expecting the greatest thing ever, you’ll almost always be let down. And it wasn’t the greatest thing ever – but it was pretty goddamn awesome. Greg Dulli is an arena rock star playing a in a small club, and he had the attitude to go with it; but I found the whole thing much more entertaining than annoying, and he was in a pretty good mood about it all, so no worries. One of the best parts of the evening was the customized microphone stand he was using, which had been accessorized with an ashtray and a drink holder, both of which were used liberally. I went into this expecting a somewhat mellow, reserved affair, similar to what you get with either of the Twilight Singer’s releases. But this show was full on rock, and I was kicking myself for the next two days for having left my earplugs at home – my ears didn’t stop ringing for at least 48 hours. Apparently they were filming this show, hopefully for a future release – I’d certainly buy it – as there were cameras and cameramen everywhere. Does this explain why the show was so damn good? Works for me if it does. Dulli and company played pretty much every song off of their 2 albums, and a few covers as he is wont to do. The most notable ones were Bjork’s “Hyperballad”, OutKast’s “Roses”, and Abba’s “Dancing Queen”; additionally, he would work bits and pieces of other people’s songs into the middle of his own – some that I picked up on were The Beatles “All We Need is Love”, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker”, and I’m certain there was a George Harrison song in there somewhere. I was a long show…he’d been playing for a couple of hours probably when I left, with no signs of letting up. My tired legs told me it was time to make trails, so I did, somewhat regrettably. If only those damn legs had been psychic, and known that Mark Lanegan was going to show up to duet with Dulli, they would have been a lot less tired. Damn you non-psychic legs! ©2004 playinginfog.com |