LOCATION: Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
LINEUP: Karin, Linford, Devon Ashley, Rick Plant
REVIEW BY:
danny316:
The show at the Local 506 last night was a bit rough - I still don't know where we were supposed to park to get in there. Apparently the band didn't realize that a membership was required to get into the venue, and they decided to delay the show while the uninformed slooowwwlllyyy filled out membership forms. By the time we'd waited for everyone to trickle into the doors (because, of course, coming BEFORE the show is supposed to start is beyond most people), it was a good half-hour delay before Over the Rhine could start.
Over the Rhine put on a great show. It was my first time seeing them and I was really impressed with how good this line-up of the band is. The drummer and bassist/guitarist for this tour really aren't given fair credit for how well they flesh out the sound here - most of the songs sounded much fuller and more nuanced than they did on the albums.
They opened with "Latter Days", and it had the same feel as it did when they played it on the Good Dog Bad Dog tours - drums in the background and some noticable guitar on it. Linford even played a little bit of an intro for it (although it wasn't as big of an intro as it used to be). Linford seemed to be having fun - moving his head to the beat Stevie Wonder-style.
I Want You To Be My Love was next, and Karin played the acoustic for it. The guitarist (I think his name's Rick) played a fretless bass on this one, and he played a decent solo on it towards the end of the song. Born gave us a chance to really see some nuance in the song - Karin played the acoustic, Rick played a guitar (bending the strings to get the "slidey" sounds and playing bass on it as well), Devon (the drummer, IIRC) added some texture with some brushes and cymbals. Linford was playing with his eyes shut during most of the songs, but he perked up a bit to sing during Born.
Lookin' Forward was done "rock-style", much the same way that it was on Live From Nowhere I. The two new songs were pretty upbeat as well - I'm On A Roll had a rhythm that reminded me of My Love Is A Fever (although it's not at all similar), and it had some slides and textures that sounded like most of the Ohio album. Entertaining Thoughts was in the same vein, but faster, and with the rhythm brought out by drums instead of the guitar.
Lifelong Fling sounded a bit more like the "Changes Come" cut of the song than I expected. It was amazing to hear how some of the quieter songs on Ohio really take flight in this setting. Also, Linford "sang" along a bit, Jack's Valentine-style. Trouble was next, and it didn't have any surprises to it - I think there's a recording of it up here somewhere that sounds the same as the way they played it. Show Me was a bit unusual - most of the song was played without the slide. I also was surprised that Linford played bass instead of organ during it. It rocked out a bit more this way, although to be honest, I'm not sure if the slide was skipped on purpose, or if it was just dropped in the middle of the song.
The set closed waaay too early with Drunkard's Prayer - which sounded a bit more like the album cut than it has recently. No accordian or anything this time around. The encore break was short, and then they played a heavier-feeling Cruel and Pretty. I'd have to check to see what they changed, but it sounded different than I was expecting. The last song of the set was "When I Go", which Linford played almost entirely on piano. The rest of the band kicked in and stepped back a few times, which made the song feel acoustic but still "rock out" for the guitar solo and some other parts.
Karin and Linford left right after they were done playing. From what I gather, they were feeling pretty wiped and the heat in the venue did them in.
Believe it or not, I plan on writing a more thorough review of this sometime. This will have to do for now though.
I'm not as familiar with Hem, but they played a few songs I recognized: The Fire Thief, Reservoir, Jackson, Half Acre... I'll have to post the full set list when I write up a more thorough review. The house sound guy was manning the board during Hem's performance - and he had a hard time handling the load. Frankly, I get the impression that this was simply a terrible choice of venue for this show, between the heat, the problems getting in, and the sound quality. At one point, Hem's keyboardist tried to talk between songs and sounded big, loud and echo-y. The vocalist tried to keep us entertained while they sorted out the sound issue by saying "Wow, I didn't know you were God". The contrast between the great job that Dave did for Over the Rhine and the poor sound during Hem's set was extremely noticable, even to the untrained ear. In spite of the sound issues though, Hem's songs still stuck out enough to get me to try out their CD. They hung around for a bit after the show, and I had Eveningland autographed by the six of them.
The issues with the house sound guy and board trying to deal with the two bands and the amount of instruments/monitors required kept me from being able to hook into the soundboard, but I tried to use a mic to record anyway. With any luck, I'll have this vine-ready before the new songs are released on CD...