PERFORMING ARTS

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer

Before Chris Thile picks a high note on his mandolin -- a note that will climax a long solo run -- he rises up on the balls of his feet, thrusts his pelvis forward and sticks out his tongue just slightly. His eyes roll back in his gently lolling head, and he plucks that final pling.

Thile gets away with such orgasmic display when he shares the stage with an equally virtuosic straight man, bassist Edgar Meyer. Tuesday night, Thile, best known for fronting Nickel Creek, and Meyer, a musician respected across genres, performed together at Lisner Auditorium. The 20-something bluegrass heartthrob came onstage in his hipster best. And Meyer, well, he looked like Mr. Meyer, your middle-school band director. Mismatched their wardrobes may be, but musically, Thile and Meyer never fail to coordinate. Last month, Nonesuch released their first duo album. About a third of Tuesday's set list was straight off that self-titled disc, including "The Farmer and the Duck," "This Is the Pig" and "Rabbit Cake." (The titles taken, apparently, from barnyard Mad Libs.)

Heard live, Thile and Meyer are most enthralling when they pass a melody back and forth, fingers flying. Concert highlights included four original Bach arrangements and a rousing round of audience-generated improv chamber music. The crowd recommended a few nouns, and Meyer and Thile responded by improvising a sonata. What would it sound like if Cookie Monster wandered into a Japanese koto factory, devoured a plate of cookies and escaped on a luge? Only the lucky folks who came to Lisner will know.

-- Rebecca J. Ritzel

Hotel Cafe Tour

The Hotel Cafe tour (named after a Los Angeles venue) brought five artists to the 9:30 club Tuesday night and was a model of efficiency: The singer-songwriters traded off sets of two to three songs each with no wasted setup time in between, as they all used the same backing band or just performed solo.

With such brief snapshots of each artist, there was barely time for more than a first impression: Spunky, sarcastic Jenny Owen Youngs was more compelling when she could play off the backing band than when by herself, while husky-voiced Samantha Crain fared far better on her solo numbers. Thao Nguyen's rollicking songs kept the night's energy high (as did her beat-boxing intro to "Bag of Hammers"), and Meiko took on the topic of friendship with the opposite sex with charming grace and wit ("Real Real Sweet," "Boys With Girlfriends").

Quick changes from one artist to the next enabled easy comparisons among them -- exposing Rachael Yamagata's second set as the evening's weak link. Though she did have moments of lucidity (the plaintive "Be Be Your Love" was a standout in her first set), her closing number, "Reason Why," was a melange of giggles, flubbed notes and constant self-interruptions to muddle through the song. With each artist performing a mere five songs total, one would've hoped for a more professional display, but therein lie the pros and cons of the round-robin format: Sets are short enough to avert a major train wreck, but an artist has no chance to redeem one poor showing.

-- Catherine P. Lewis

Jay Reatard

Google "Jay Reatard" and among the first results is a YouTube video titled "Jay Reatard -- Kicks a dude in the face in Vegas!" You'll also find plenty of blogorrhea about his eight-minute Toronto show last spring, which the Memphis-based garage punk ended abruptly after punching a guy who stumbled onto the stage.

So when Reatard, ne Jay Lindsey, pulled a beaming kid from the Black Cat crowd Tuesday and handed him a guitar, it was a sweet moment -- though you held your breath nonetheless, hoping the young fan wouldn't make a wrong move.

He didn't, and the only violence Reatard inflicted during his furiously paced half-hour set was on his own neck. Just watching the explosively haired Reatard and the similarly coiffed bassist Stephen Pope bang their skulls around like bobbleheads on the Acela was enough to give you sympathy whiplash. They left hardly a beat in between the 16 songs, except when Reatard shouted the next title, which didn't necessarily help casual fans identify each offering. Whether speaking or singing, Reatard's voice was a bluster, with the live versions of songs such as "Blood Visions" and "See Saw" sped up so fast they made the recorded tracks seem quaint.

Whereas similar performances of double-time post-punk can disintegrate into a noisy mess, Reatard, Pope and drummer Billy Hayes kept things ridiculously tight, each never once seeming to fall out of step with the others. The brevity of the show might have left the crowd wanting more, but despite the energy drink Reatard pounded before he began, it's hard to imagine anyone keeping up such a frenzy for much longer.

-- Tricia Olszewski