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Yo La Tengo wrapped up this yr’s Hanukkah Residency on the Bowery Ballroom final night time. In what’s develop into an annual custom for the band, they stake out a venue within the New York space for all eight nights of Hanukkah. Their first Residency was at Maxwell’s in Hoboken again in 2001. I’d heard about this City Legend, however hadn’t pulled the set off till this yr.
I opted for Night time Quantity 4, this previous Wednesday. In years previous, Yo La Tengo has run this factor like a range present, with shock friends, comedians, and different entertainers, along with their fantastic selves.
I’ve lengthy been a Yo La Tengo fan. Their reside performances are at all times a deal with. All three musicians within the band — entrance man Ira Kaplan, drummer Georgia Hurley, and bassist James McNew, are every fantastic, proficient musicians. All of them swap out and in of percussion, keyboards, and vocals, and so they cowl a broad swath of musical types — people, jazz, blues, rock, punk — you identify it and so they can play it. They play a ton of their very own materials, which is a powerful library itself, and so they cowl simply as large a wide range of different bands and solo acts.
Tonight’s friends included musicians Angel Dean and Sue Gardner, a few horrible comedians, and Marky Ramone.
Angel and Sue had been the opening act. They had been just a little plinky-plinky/folksy for me, however had been entertaining and humorous. They’ve clearly had a protracted relationship with Yo La Tengo, and confirmed their age a bit once they talked about attending Ira Kaplan’s bris and altering his diapers.
Yo La Tengo led off their set with a canopy of The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop”, after which performed over a dozen of YLT’s lesser recognized songs, wrapping up with a canopy of Velvet Underground’s “I Discovered A Purpose”. Alongside the way in which, Ira Kaplan launched right into a 24-hour guitar solo, which he pulled off fairly effectively.
After which it bought spectacular. For his or her encore, Yo La Tengo was joined by Marky Ramone on drums and Tom Kenny on vocals. In what was the spotlight of the night time, the improved band blasted out half a dozen Ramones tunes: Rockaway Seashore. I Can’t Make It On Time. Be My Child (OK, this one was The Ronettes). I Wanna Be Sedated. Loudmouth. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker. You’ll be able to see a couple of brief clips from the encore numbers here.
The general impact was an incredible lounge band that bought uncontrolled and fully took over the bar mitzvah. It was a terrific present.
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