Built to Spill at First Avenue, Minneapolis (11/17/13)

GENDERS

Genders, a “casual rock and roll band” from Portland, was first the first of four bands, currently touring in support of their debut self-titled EP. Their brief 30 minute set started with some bass issues, which prompt singer Maggie Morris to tell this joke they came up riding in their van across the country: “Why do chicken coup have two doors? Because if it had four doors it’ll be a chicken sedan.”

SLAM DUNK

“Is it hard to kick your own butt?” wondered the singer of Slam Dunk. The Canadian band is currently on tour in support of their sophomore album Welcome to Miami, playing songs from “Dying Breed” to “Why Can’t I Change” and “Horse Bumper”. Based on their semi-matching Michael Jackson T-shirts and wide smiles all across, you get the impression that they just can’t believe that “we’re in a band!”

THE WARM HAIR

The Warm Hair was a metal band, lead by Freebird Von Klauts. Highlight of their set included guest Built to Spill’s Brett Netson and Freebird as they closed out their set with to an epic what seems to be like a fifteen minute all-guitar face-off battle.



Built To Spill has been around for over twenty years, so they have an endless supply of music to draw from. Their last album, There Is No Enemy, which they released in 2009, was also their highest chart topper. So they played some hits off their last record, including
“Hindsight”, “Pat” and “Planting Seeds”.



Every Built to Spill song they played featured long extended outros, thanks to Brett Netson and Jim Roth’s expert guitar-playing skills. It’s hard to believe that every song they played sounded like they could be a strong finale, but they chose instead to close it out with “Carry The Zero”.

Setlist Photo

The real fun is actually the encore, featuring two covers Blue Öyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and The Smiths’ “How Soon is Now?”. Singer Doug Martsch does a great job in keeping the songs faithful to the original, although there was a nod to that infamous Saturday Night Live skit when all three drummers from the previous bands came on stage to playing cowbells.



As for “How Soon is Now?”, Built to Spill’s version was perfect, complete with that distinct guitar chord intro sample and down to all the corrected lyrics and extended wobbling effects at the end.



Although it would have been hard to top that cover, Built to Spill did a pretty good job with the sing-along “Car”, a song from the much-beloved There’s Nothing Wrong with Love album.