The Best Gigs of ‘08, West Coast Edition

Words and Photographs by Luke Pimentel, Editor

January 2, 2009

Economic collapse and global chaos notwithstanding, 2008 was a heck of a time to be a live music junkie, particularly here in Northern Cali.

Beyond what I covered for the site, the year took me just about everywhere a concertgoer can be taken, from shows with no amplification whatsoever to shows that, according to unverified sources, set world records for eardrum-shattering racket. I saw folk Goddess Joan Baez get choked up when an entire crowd of strangers sang perfect harmonies with her on “Amazing Grace”, just days after Barack Obama’s election victory. I saw former Talking Head David Byrne dust off his collaborations with Brian Eno and deliver a solo show that got people young and old dancing in the aisles like it was 1984 all over again. I saw Bay Area metal Gods Metallica re-claim their former majesty with one of their best shows in ages. I saw Lars Ulrich get pied multiple times in the face, and what music fan hasn’t wanted to see that?

Elbows were jostled, feet stepped on, drinks consumed. Tinnitus was a frequent visitor to my auditory canals.  I’ve never had so much fun.

Here are some of my favorite moments from the year in live music.

Gypsy Campfire

Many of the best gigs are the ones you have low expectations for. I certainly wasn’t expecting a whole lot on a chilly evening in May when Eugene Hutz, the flamboyant frontman for visionary Gypsy punk-rock act Gogol Bordello, dropped in on a tiny Roma music festival in the bohemian burg of Sebastopol, CA, deep in the heart of Wine Country.

Fresh off a main-stage Coachella appearance just five days before, Hutz – every inch the worldly rocker with his spear-toed boots, purple silk jacket, flowing handlebar ‘stache, and mane of greasy hair – couldn’t have seemed more out of place strolling around a community building ill-equipped to handle most bake sales.

Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello at the 2008 Herdeljezi Festival.

Hutz had been billed to deliver an hour-long DJ set of remixes culled from obscure Gypsy records. Halfway through the performance, the power to the loudspeakers mysteriously cut out, silencing the turntables. Hutz – never one to let a party die – disappeared into a back room, emerging with an acoustic guitar and two of his Gogol Bordello bandmates – accordionist Yuri Lemeshev and violinist Sergey Ryabtsev – in tow. He then gave the hundred-or-so of us that had stuck around a toothy grin and announced, “This is what a real Roma festival is like!”

What followed was a rare treat: Two hours of impromptu Gogol Bordello music, mixed with liberal doses of traditional Roma tunes from Eastern Europe, performed entirely a capella, with Hutz standing at the foot of the stage and the crowd surrounding him like sixth graders at the world’s greatest campfire singalong. Tubas, clarinets, percussion, and any other number of instruments joined the throng in a spontaneous outburst of ad-libbed, run-on culture that neither I, nor any of the other G.B. fans who had shown up out of curiosity, had ever experienced before. It was one of the rare instances where a questionable weekend venture produced a truly unforgettable evening.

Eugene Hutz, Sergey Ryabtsev and Yuri Lemeshev of Gogol Bordello.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

Every Autumn, a Silicon Valley billionaire named Warren Hellman throws a free concert in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Over the six years it has existed, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival has ballooned to epic proportions, drawing upwards of 200,000 people over three days, enough to rival Bonnaroo, Coachella, and just about any other major music fest in the country.

Elvis Costello at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2008.

If you could make it to all three days, this year’s line-up was an embarrassment of riches: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, the late Odetta, Steve Earle, Nick Lowe, Tift Merritt, Greg Brown, Iron and Wine, and Ralph Stanley, just to name a few… all performing for free!

I snuck in on the final afternoon to catch wonderful back-to-back sets by Gogol Bordello (stretching the “hardly strictly” part of the festival’s name as far as it’s ever been stretched) and the always-inspired Elvis Costello, performing with an ad hoc backing band known as “High Whines and Spirits”. Costello had made a memorable splash in his festival debut two years prior, and this set was a typically ambitious follow-up, mixing straight-ahead rock (”Uncomplicated”) with sly covers (The Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil”), guest slots (Emmylou Harris, Jim Lauderdale), and even a full men’s choir, tromping onstage en masse to perform lovely backing vocals for an all-new arrangement of show closer “The Scarlet Tide”.

As a one-two punch, there was no better grouping of performances to be found on any bill this year.

Gogol Bordello at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2008.

Jet Engine Shoegaze

Noise experts My Bloody Valentine are justly revered for taking guitar rock to new realms with the hazy, oft-impenetrable layers of droning guitar distortion that characterize classic albums like 1991’s Loveless.

When the band showed up at San Francisco’s Concourse Exhibition Hall in late September – at the tail-end of a highly successful reunion tour – they turned their formidable collection of amps on a venue already known for its cavernous, hangar-like acoustics. The result was most certainly the loudest show most of the attendees had ever been to in their lives, with noise levels reportedly topping out at between 120 and 130 decibels. To not wear earplugs at this spectacle was, quite seriously, to take your life – or at least your ears – into your own hands.

This was especially true for the climax of the show, a twenty-three minute aural assault known only as “The Holocaust”, during which a constant shriek of guitar and drums was transformed into a throbbing wave of noise that felt something akin to standing in the wake of a jet engine during takeoff. Standing on a balcony just a few feet from the stage – feeling the ripples of reverb rip through my body like hurricane gales – it seemed as though every single rivet and beam in the building was rattling in protest, and for a brief moment, I seriously questioned the ability of the venue to withstand the pressure. Thankfully it did, but many in the audience did not – some fled, some cried, some threw up, some even passed out. Some called it sculpture with sound, others called it masochism.

I called it rock and f–king roll, baby.

What were some of your favorite gigs of ‘08? The staff of Interference wants to know!