Three nights of Slint in the Windy City

I got home a little bit ago from the third and final Slint show here in town. It is also their last show ever allegedly. I really enjoyed all three shows, with the second nite being the best of the bunch.

One thing that really was odd, and not limited to their shows here from what my sister told me today on the phone, is the way the crowd behaved at the show. In the lengthy time between songs (often times 3 minutes or more), the crowd was almost dead silent. With the exception of an occasion drunk trying to be funny, people just talked either almost in whispers, or not at all. The crowd seemed to be so mesmorized by the fact they are seeing this band, that they are just sitting there quietly in awe, then loudly applaud at the conclusion of a song. The band wouldn’t say a word between songs with very rare exception if Brian would say something that would be relegated to about 1 sentence. It was bizarre and I’ve never seen anything like this behavior at a show. It should be noted the band were taper friendly and there were plenty of people with gear set up all over taping the shows.

The band played great, and sounded amazing. Their stage presence however was non-existent. They stand up there and it is like they are doing a recital, they barely move an inch! Its not a lot to look at, but they more than make up for it with the great playing, and the great songs. They played the entire Spiderland album and a good portion of Tweez along with the untitled 10″. The first nite they opened with “Good Morning Captain” and finished with the last song on Tweez but in its longer version like on the 10″. The second nite they mixed it up, played the Tweez version of the aforementioned song, and ended with “Good Morning Captain”. This final show was much like the first. Last nite and tonite, they played an unreleased song called “Pam” that sounded like it was written around the Tweez era.

The Metro shows were far better than the Park West one because the sound was way better at the Metro, especially on the second nite. The shows were well worth the money, and I’m really glad that I got to see them. Unfortunately they did not allow flash photography, so I had to take pix without the flash, which is pretty much useless with my camera as it sucks in low light but here’s the three pictures that came out the best. They were all from the first Metro show.