October 20, 2004
Crooked Fingers with Papercranes at Maxwells, 10/19/04
Last night we went back to Maxwell's to see Crooked Fingers' Eric Bachmann play a show. The opening band was Papercranes. I'd never heard of them before, but one of my friends who came with me to the show identified their music as post-grunge, early Smashing Pumpkins style fare. The band themselves were quite diverse in their looks. The lead singer was kind of this post-goth chick, dressed all in black, electrical tape on her fingers, and a bunch of cross necklaces. The guitarist was a punk of sorts: mohawk, exceptionally baggy pants, tank-top with some band on the front, tatoos all down his arms. The cellist was a pretty normal-looking girl who would have fit in at Columbia (or Covenant for that matter). The bassist was your standard up-scale hipster, and the drummer was your standard dressed-down hipster. For me, that was the most memorable part of their set: the musis decent, but not spectacular.
Bachmann, on the other hand, was spectacular. This was helped in no small part by the fact that my friends and I were immediately in front of the stage in the center. Best spot in the house. It was mostly just him playing, but for a few songs he was joined by a girl he introduced as "Lara", who is apparently the female vocalist in all of the duets on the albums. He said that the next album (February 2005. Woot!) has a lot more duets on it, and since she's only with him for a few dates this tour, we were lucky to have her there. He started off with a lot of new material, all of which was at least as good as anything that's come before. Then he played "Sweet Marie" from Red Devil Dawn. Even though he announced it before he started playing, it sounded so different from the album that it took me a while to recognize it. But damn. It was good. So were "Crowned in Chrome", "New Drink for the Old Drunk" (which were back-to-back), "You Can Never Leave", and "Broken Man". Some of the differences were just because he was solo, but a lot of them were him having fun with the songs.
At one point, he said, "This is my favorite part of the show." He went over to the side and picked up a bundle of cloth. "In high school I always dreamed about playing keyboards in a band and wearing a cape. Time to live the dream." And he donned the cape (a black, velour affair), and sat down to play. After he finished, he removed it and said, "I got about halfway through and then started to feel like a moron. Well, maybe it worked for some of you. Didn't work for me." That kind of embarrassed camraderie was typical of the whole show. He seemed constantly surprised that anyone had come, much less that the place was packed, and had this silly grin on his face whenever we'd applaud. His appreciation seemed so genuine it was really sweet.
There was a lot of interaction between him and the crowd, most of which was really good-natured. During the chorus of each song you could hear everyone singing along. In the middle of "Valerie", a song he did unplugged and which I'd never heard before, there was a line "I don't need those peep show girls anymore," after which he stopped dead and said, "That's not true you know. The ladies like to hear it, but that shit doesn't go away." Apparently this realization struck him with some force, because he had to spend a few seconds remembering where he was in the song.
After he finished his set - which was pretty long, upwards of an hour and a half - the crowd called him back for an encore, which he seemed to kind of expect by this point. He did not, however, seem to expect the concerted demand for a second encore. But he did it anyway, and finished with "You Can Never Leave," by popular request.
Before the show I snagged a shirt, then tracked down a Sharpie from the bar and got it signed. Score. He's coming back in November to play the Bowery Ballroom, opening for The Delgados, and I'm so there. He also said he and the whole band are coming out next year to promote their new album. I can't wait.
