Virtually Home

Jake Bellows We went to Omaha for Christmas, and I did my best to contain my Saddle Creek enthusiasm, in favor of family time. But on Christmas Eve eve, I received intelligence that Neva Dinova was playing a reunion show -- the first time in the six years since the band broke up that they had played a show. Since the band had no intention of ever playing a show again, and since tickets were not only available but only $10, I was pretty psyched. We headed to the slowdown, and met Jacob's brother and his girlfriend for drinks. I hadn't been to the Slowdown since my first trip to Omaha, before I turned 21. We showed up to bask in the Saddle Creek-iness of the place, and made the bartender make us coffee in the middle of the afternoon, since we couldn't buy beer. The place has been remodeled and expanded since then. They have a whole new side of the room with a full-size stage, now, including a split-level area and a balcony from which you can take in the show. It's t...

Klara I found out about two days in advance that First Aid Kit were playing in town, and grabbed some secondhand tickets for probably way too much money. I had missed them on their last pass through town, in June, because I was busy with the frog season -- and I really regretted it. I wasn't about to miss out again, and I hadn't caught a FAK show since they opened for Bright Eyes in Dallas on the People's Key tour. Johanna Samantha Crain opened. She's a singer-songwriter from Oklahoma who I had seen play in Norman, sometimes with John Calvin. I enjoyed her set -- and her Oklahoma stories. It felt almost like being back home, except there was still no good Mexican food. Alas. The thing that always strikes me about Samantha Crain is that she has tiny hands for such a good guitarist. I had been living under a rock, I guess, because I didn't realize First Aid Kit's "new" album had been out for about five months. As a result, I got to hear mos...

July Talk's creepy antics. The summer that I discovered the Rural Alberta advantage, I was volunteering in the herpetology department of a museum of natural history. I listened to Hometowns incessantly as I looked through buckets of preserved box turtles. Hearing their music still reminds me of the smell of ethanol and hundred-year-old snakes. It may seem remarkable that I find this pleasant, but I do. Ah, nostalgia. The RAA were here in Minneapolis last January testing out new material for their album Mended with Gold, recently out on Saddle Creek Records. They're a three piece band from (surprise) Alberta. They were on tour with another Canadian band, July Talk, whose performance was unique and surprisingly disturbing. I've never before experienced a concert in which I liked the way a band sounded but couldn't stand their stage antics. In fact, never has my overall opinion of a band been formed exclusively or even primarily by their stage antics. July Talk...

"This is one of the best places in the world to play music," Oberst said pretty early in the show. I have always believed it's one of the best places in the world to hear music, so I jumped at the chance to see this show. Jonathan Wilson and his band have replaced Dawes as Conor's opening act/backup band combination on this leg of the tour. Nate Walcott has joined the lineup on keyboards and horns, and I think that's really exciting. Walcott and Mike Mogis, the other two long-time members of Bright Eyes, have started working on movie scores, most famously for The Fault in Our Stars (2014). I thought maybe their days of working with Oberst were done, but I'm pretty psyched to be proven wrong. Jonathan Wilson appears to be an insufferable hipster, and Jonathan Wilson and his band during their opening act. I'm not a huge fan of his recorded work. However. Wilson and his band put on a pretty wonderful performance to start the show. It was engaging, an...

Yesterday, my grandmother died. She loved chocolate, card games, and iced tea in Styrofoam cups. She liked tennis on TV in the summer, and float trips down the creek. She liked fifty-cent mysteries from the used bookstore and John Wayne movies whenever they were on. She liked email, and digital photos, and being able to print family pictures in her kitchen. She liked fruit salad and fried chicken and creamed corn. She liked saving money, and paying cash for things. She was born on the last day of 1928, and lived through the stock market crash, the Great Depression, World War II, and other things that seem to me unimaginably long ago. She started college at Oklahoma A&M (now OSU) but dropped out to get married. Much later, she would tell me never to change my plans for a man. For years, she volunteered one or two days a week to run a thrift store that benefited Domestic Violence Intervention Services. She liked collecting old coins, and she sent me a two-dollar bill with ev...

Conservatism says everything is fine the way it is. It says nothing we can dream could possibly be better than this. It says I cannot empathize with those less fortunate than me. I cannot contemplate the future. I have no interest in the good of the commons. I am reactionary. My imagination was stillborn. Conservatism says we only look backward. We only wish things were how they used to be. Well, how things are can always be better. And how things were is almost never as awesome as you think you remember. Conservatism is cowardice, and I have no patience for it.

Dawes' opening set, with Nate Walcott on their last song. I like to see artists perform where they live. Catching Conor Oberst in Omaha is always special, largely because some combination of his friends, ex-bandmates, and Saddle Creek colleagues will show up to add something unique to the show. But Oberst has a second home and another record label (Team Love) in NYC these days, so when I heard he was performing two days before a professional conference I was attending, I snagged a ticket. Conor, early in the set. Because my flight was delayed, I showed up pretty late to the show – at least by my own standards. I arrived as the doors were opening, so there were approximately a bajillion people in line in front of me. I made the best of it and still ended up on the third row of the GA crowd. Dawes opened, like they have on the rest of the tour. The setlist was what I remembered from their recent two-night stand in Minneapolis. They performed well, but nothing stood...