It’s been a banner concert season, capped off Friday night by our fourth show by The National in the last eight months.  We’ve written ceaselessly about this band, their Best Album of 2013 Trouble Will Find Me, and their live shows (which you can read about HERE and HERE).  So we won’t bore with another long praise-screed.  Suffice it to say that we believe them to be America’s best live band (and possibly the world’s best, due deference to Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Elbow and U2).  And that on Friday night they came to the hallowed Santa Barbara Bowl and measured up well against the greats (Marley, The Band, Mitchell, Radiohead, etc.) that have graced these grounds.

Portugal the Man opened and delivered a mesmerizing set of songs warranting much closer scrutiny by yours truly.  We were pleasantly surprised to see a good turnout for the band and most of those in attendance knowing every word to every song of the band’s (one minor complaint would be the leader’s constant mid-song gaze at the stage while tuning his guitar–doesn’t exactly propel things in a live setting)

And then it was time for The National.  And they came out and did what they always d0: lift the world’s weight and make all right again with their healing music.  We will confess that we had concerns following our viewing of the band last month at the Shrine Auditorium.  There, the cavernous venue and an opening film (Tom Berninger’s captivating documentary Mistaken For Strangers) combined to seemingly sap the life entirely from the crowd and partly from the band.  But Friday night was another matter all together.  Bands just can’t help themselves at the Santa Barbara Bowl, and The National continued that legacy.  And this Bowl crowd came ready to sing and sway.  We had been praying for rain all week, certain that the rare event would help to motivate the crowd and band.  And it was so when, while the band was sailing along during their set, the skies opened up (especially the downpour during Slow Show and amidst the oh-so-apropos England) and righteously baptized the proceedings.  From then on the audience gathered resolve with the rain, and there was no turning back, with all on their feet and firmly focused.  Song highlights from the show included Conversation 16, Afraid of Everyone, All the Wine, the rare Santa Clara (the song’s first performance in 2014), Bloodbuzz Ohio, England (as always, but particularly with this rain–a runner was definitely sent–if you haven’t seen, check out the video at the bottom of this post), and the now-standard, scintillating encore-trilogy of Mr. November, Terrible Love and the acoustic/acapella Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks (as depicted above).  As he almost always does, singer Matt Berninger raged out into the crowd during the encore and walked the ancient walls to the crowd’s delight.  No band ends their shows as strongly as this one ’cause they’re “desperate to entertain.”  Nothing better.

Check out our photos (with two panoramics from Tad Wagner) below, along with the full setlist at bottom (you can see they were sadly forced to omit the rarely-performed City Middle)

One of our favorite recent discoveries is Australian artist Courtney Barnett.  After wrapping up roundly-praised performances at Corpchella last week, Barnett will heading out on the road for more shows (see list at bottom).  In between all the comings and goings, last night Barnett made her US television debut on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and performed the scintillating single Avant Gardener off her critically-acclaimed album, The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas (Mom + Pop Music).  Check it out below.  As we’ve said before, we love Barnett’s deadpan delivery and lyrics that elevate everyday events into epiphanic epigrams.  All of which shines through on Fallon.

North American Tour Dates /

06.10.14 – Headliners Music Hall – Louisville, KY *
06.11.14 – Exit In – Nashville, TN *
06.12.14 – Georgia Theatre – Athens, GA *
06.14.14 – Music Hall Of Williamsburg – Northside Festival – Brooklyn, NY
06.17.14 – Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY
06.18.14 – The Sinclair – Cambridge, MA
06.19.14 – Firefly Festival – Dover, DE
06.20.14 – NXNE Festival – Toronto, ON
06.24.14 – Varsity Theater – Minneapolis, MN
07.01.14 – Larimer Lounge – Denver, CO
07.02.14 – Urban Lounge – Salt Lake City, UT
07.04.14 – Fortune Sound Club – Vancouver, BC
07.05.14 – Sasquatch Festival – George, WA
08.01.14 – 08.03.14 – Pickathon Festival – Happy Valley, OR
08.01.14 – 08.03.14 – Lollapalooza – Chicago, IL
08.01.14 – 08.03.14 – Osheaga Festival – Montreal, QC
08.08.14 – 08.10.14 – Outside Lands Festival – San Francisco, CA

* w/ Phosphorescent

Brit super-band Elbow has today released its subtly-affecting official video for My Sad Captains from their fantastic new album, The Take Off And Landing of Everything.  Watch below and listen for the horns heralding one of the outstanding “One Day Like This“ moments on the new album (the other being New York Morning), with its building handclaps and Shakespearean allusions.  What a waste of perfect time indeed.  Here’s to all our pals of yore and ‘morrow!

Before headlining (yet again) at the Glastonbury Festival in June, the band is coming to America next month (see tour dates at bottom) for a scant twelve dates, and we can’t wait to catch them on that special day, May 28th, at The Wiltern in LA, and hear Guy Garvey sonorously deliver My Sad Captains.  Without doubt the show will be one of the highlights of this concert year.  We only pass this way once.

The song’s lyrics follow the video.

The regrouped and revamped Pixies have a new album out (Indy Cindy, their first in 20 years) and have been out on tour in support (having played both weekends of Corpchella to generally rave reviews, and managing to visit the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur in between).  Been a long dang time since our minds and viruses were blown by the band in 1989 on the Doolittle tour.

We have only heard a couple of songs off the new album and, Frankly, have not been overly impressed.  Until today.  We will now have to revisit and listen more closely to Indy Cindy.  This morning the band showed up on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic and played, amongst others, new song Greens and Blues, together with one of their hallmarks, Monkey Gone to Heaven.  As you can see below, Greens and Blues comes off very well here and Monkey Gone to Heaven is, well, gigantic (God is Seven!!).  You can listen/watch the entire Morning Becomes Eclectic session HERE.

To stream Indy Cindy, go over to The Guardian HERE.

Neil Young will on May 27th release his new album of cover songs entitled A Letter Home, which was “reproduced” by Jack White and Young.  Check out Young below performing Bert Jansch’s song Needle of Death in a refurbished 1947 Voice-o-Graph vinyl recording booth at White’s Third Man Records in Nashville. Needle of Death’s inspiration for Young’s superb On The Beach song Ambulance Blues is obvious (listen to it at bottom).  Young told Rolling Stone back in 1992:

“I was especially taken by Needle Of Death, such a beautiful and angry song. That guy was so good… And years later, on On The Beach, I wrote the melody of Ambulance Blues by styling the guitar part completely on Needle Of Death. I wasn’t even aware of it, and someone else drew my attention to it.”

Here is a list of the cover songs on the new album:

1. Changes (Phil Ochs)
2. Girl From The North Country (Bob Dylan)
3. Needle of Death (Bert Jansch)
4. Early Morning Rain (Gordon Lightfoot)
5. Crazy (Willie Nelson)
6. Reason To Believe (Tim Hardin)
7. On The Road Again (Willie Nelson)
8. If You Could Read My Mind (Gordon Lightfoot)
9. Since I Met You Baby (Ivory Joe Hunter)
10. My Hometown (Bruce Springsteen)
11. I Wonder If I Care As Much (Everly Brothers)

Let’s face facts.  Coldplay will, in most respects, always be the little brother to U2, Radiohead and others (Travis, perhaps) from the UK music scene.  Don’t get us wrong, Chris Martin and cohorts have written some beautiful, impossibly-catchy songs over the last decade plus, and certainly can put on a big-top live show.  But Coldplay is never going to be high on the list of the most-inventive, most-influential outfits (at least compared with the aforesaid bands).  To wit, the band will next month release new album Ghost Stories.  We’ve all heard the first tracks from the album, Midnight and Magic, and we at Chez Lefort were soundly unimpressed by the songs and even more concerned than normal about the artistic vitality of the band’s new album.

Thankfully the band has today shared another, better song entitled Oceans via a live performance for BBC Radio 1, which you can listen to/watch below.   The song is particularly compelling given Martin’s recent high-profile split with wife Gwyneth Paltrow.  Check out Martin below singing about a failing relationship amid spare, tasteful backup by the band.  His pain is palpable (Paltrowble?).

The band also announced today the release of Coldplay: Ghost Stories, a 60-minute special that will be broadcast on NBC on Sunday, May 18th that will mesh live video with “360-degree imagery.”

Check out Oceans below.

As we’ve been regularly mentioning, the great Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz, et. al) is poised to release his solo debut Everyday Robots next week.  We’ve heard a good portion of the new “cathartic” album, and it is, as we have come to expect from Albarn, a melodic, massively-affecting meisterwork.  Today Albarn has dropped his official video for the magnificent Heavy Seas of Love collaboration with Brian Eno.  We were a little slow and only yesterday posted last week’s Song of the Week, but we can’t stop listening to Heavy Seas of Love so let’s just call it now:  Heavy Seas of Love is our Song of the Week this week.  Check out below the charming and crafty iPad-created video below with its jumble of of journeyings.  Afterwards, go over and stream Everyday Robots via iTunes Radio.  It will surely vie for Best Album of 2014.

What a long, strange trip it’s been at Chez Lefort these last few weeks.  It’s enough to make ya wanna Shriek.  Speaking of which, Baltimore’s Wye Oak is set to release their new album, Shriek, on April 29th on Merge.  The band had a major breakthrough in 2011 with their Civilian album, which featured and capitalized on the rousing guitar-play of leader Jenn Wasner.  We were initially shocked that Shriek eschews Wasner’s guitar-work to focus on synths and bass, but repeated listens reveal that the broader palette has paid off soundly for the band.  Along the way Wasner takes on the vocal mien of many of the great female vocalists to great effect (check out the closing trilogy of the Kate Bush-like Paradise, followed by the decidedly Joni Mitchell-y I Know The Law, capped off by the pop brilliance of Logic of Color).

The first sample we heard from the album came in the way of the first official video from the album for the ebullient marching-mode of track Tower, which you can watch below in all of its painterly, Mary Poppins-y glory.  We’ve since sampled the album in its entirety, and can tell you it is a superbly deep and rewarding album.  To get a feel, you can now stream it over at NPR until the 28th.  If you do nothing else with the stream, put the melodic-beauty Logic of Color (track 10) on repeat.  It was our Song of the Week last week and helped pull us through.

Get ready to Shriek.  The album’s tracklist is below the video and you can pre-order it HERE.

Shriek Tracklist:
1. Before
2. Shriek
3. The Tower
4. Glory
5. Sick Talk
6. Schools Of Eyes
7. Despicable Animal
8. Paradise
9. I Know The Law
10. Logic Of Color

During the week between the Corpchella weekends, the usual media-fest has unfurled.  Last night Broken Bells (The Shins’ James Mercer and Danger Mouse) appeared on Conan and performed Control from their recent album After The Disco.  Check out below as the band performs Control, which could be a Brit synth-pop-soul song from the likes of ABC/Thompson Twins, but minus the synths and with much-needed horn-section embellishment.  As great as they are as songwriters/producers/players, the boys might want to lose a little more control on stage.