 indie rock photography by jasper coolidge     
The Lemonheads 04.28.11 @ Maxwells Hoboken No intro, no banter, no encore, no nonsense. It's as if Evan telepathically plucked out the perfect set list out of my head and proceeded to blitz through it hard and fast (yes, that's what she said). EVERYTHING a properly self-loathing (more on that later) Lemonheads fan could've wanted we got - for me the only glaring omission being the oft-forgotten Mallo Cup. You name it, he played it: My Drug Buddy, Big Gay Heart, Into Your Arms, Hospital, Rudderless, Rockin' Stroll, Great Big No, Style, etc, and on and on. I think they played 18? songs altogether and undoubtedly those of us happily plunking down our $20 and freezing in Maxwell's icebox of a back room would've wanted them to go on til NJ's 2am curfew. The last time I had been this close to Evan as he performed was in the early aughts when after a Mark Gardener sorta secret show on a rainy Sunday night at Pianos, a bunch of us including Mark and Evan scurried up to the infamous upstairs lounge for some quality time after-partying. As Mark happened to bring his guitar along, I requested that they maybe take requests and in the highlight of my life up to that point and after, Evan serenaded us with an unplugged and personal rendition of My Drug Buddy - the theme of which would unironically haunt and define me for the rest of the decade. In the years since, I've always described the revelry of fandom that I experienced that night as akin to having Dylan and Donovan play in your living room in 1965 'cuz that's what they meant to me in the 1995. Being a fan didn't get much better than that. Now, about us Lemonheads fans. Something I noticed about the obsessives in the front row - we were all flying solo, lost in our own private mono-bliss. It seems that with artists like Evan or Conor or Elliot and the like, the relationship one has with their music is not only deeply personal but also phantom-limbed in the sense that the people and memories who these powerpop songs of love and longing stirred up for us were sometime long ago and somewhere far away (definitely in my case). Listening to them becomes a cathartic excuse to wade into those feelings safely and at a distance re-living the pain in the most pleasurable way. So, we become consumed with a muse like Evan Dando who not only puts those feelings into word and melody but allows us to take them out and feel them all over again lest we forget what it was like to not be jaded old bastards. So thank you, Evan Dando for making our lives that tad bit brighter by lighting it up from the past. thelemonheads.net |
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