Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Another Great Opening Act - One Eskimo

Sue won tix for the Tori Amos concert which was last night at the Chicago Theatre. Can't say I loved the show, although the audience was definitely into her. It didn't help that I only recognized two songs ("Cornflake Girl" and "Big Wheel" which pretty much bookended the show), and a lot of the rest was very avant-garde, almost operatic. Her diction is not in the Natalie Merchant zone, so following the songs -- which didn't have a lot of verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure -- was difficult, even boring at times. Nice light show.

The opening act was One Eskimo. They weren't on the ticket or the marquee, but I'm glad they were there. It consisted of a vocalist who couldn't stand still, bopping up and down even when hunched over the mike, and three musicians who were so laid back, sitting down, almost comatose, that at first I thought it was all coming from a recording (there were some recorded/sequenced synth and samples). The bassist also played horn, the guitarist had nice chops, and the drummer was playing a mostly-electronic kit that looked like he borrowed it from "Rock Band" but really rocked out when he pulled out the mallets and tom.

I'd have to say that influences definitely include Moby, Primitive Radio Gods and that sort of trance/electronica stuff -- I'm probably getting those names wrong, it's outside my usual music comfort zone. But it was fun, engaging and these folks could go far. They've got an album coming out in September, and a 3 song/4 track EP (only $5 at the souvenir stand? You can't get a pin for that price anymore). We listened to the EP on the way home, and it didn't have the immediacy, the emotion of the live show -- but it seldom does (let me tell you about Billy Joel's Storm Front some time).

Give them a listen. Nice stuff.