By: David de Young
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The cover of Kid Dakota's new album on Chairkickers, "The West Is The Future." The album art is by Will Schaff
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When I spoke to Darren Jackson after Friday night's show he was confident that it had indeed gone very well and encouraged me to come back the next day and try again. That I succeeded in doing, as well I should have; although howwastheshow has been very good at covering one of Jackson’s side-projects (he’s a key member of the fuel-injected pop super group, The Olympic Hopefuls) Jackson pointed out, much to my chagrin, that over the past three years we had never once written about a Kid Dakota show.
Jackson walked out on stage about 7:30 Saturday evening in an appropriately dark suit and tie and opened the set with a solo rendition of a yet unreleased new song called Two Days. He had recorded this song for the very first time that very afternoon at KQRS for premiere airing on Sunday night’s Homegrown program. Two Days is a serious, slow and powerful song that helped set the tone for the dark, powerhouse of a set that was to follow.
For his second song (and I can’t tell you for sure what it was now because I lost the set list so kindly given to me by Jackson) Jackson was joined onstage by drummer Christopher Maguire as the song built to its climax. For the next song, when Erik Applewick (also a fellow Olympic Hopeful) joined on guitar and Zak Sally (of Low) joined on bass, the type of power blowing out the low end of the Triple Rock speakers was on par with what you might expect at a Pink Floyd arena rock show. The visual was no less impressive as Jackson stood firmly rooted stage center on guitar, and Maguire, whose kit was stage right even with Jackson, seemed to have his sticks in the air as much as on his drums. The snare cracks sounded like gunshots, and the bass drum like so many sonic booms. A drum solo at one point during this song sounded like a sea chest laden with gold being dragged down a flight of stairs in perfect rhythm.
Next up was Ivan, a song from the new CD “The West is the Future” with a long musical break at the end that (5 of 9 songs on the new CD are over five minutes long) went straight into Pilgrim, a song of exploration, new beginnings and ultimately transience. During Pilgrim, apparently there was a drum problem. Darren Jackson said “Hey Martin Dosh, Chris needs a snare drum.” The drum was replaced mid-song without Maguire so much as pausing. This song was another powerhouse.
The slow, dark waltz Starlight Motel was next. During it I was transfixed just watching Maguire. At times he looked like he was about to cry. As Jackson sang words from the perspective of a sad, desperate man trying to pick up a woman in a desolate desert-like land, Maguire started unbuttoning his white shirt beneath his sport coat, looking like some sort of crazed professor.
The band went straight into the slow guitar start of the dark story-song Pine Ridge, a Leonard Cohen-influenced tale of a couple who take a drunken drive across a South Dakota reservation “all the way to the pow, pow wow.” The lyrics effectively repeated the phrases ‘The night is dark. And there’s unrest. Drums in the distance. They’re beating them to death” with Maguire on drums miming “dark” by putting his hand over his eyes and “distance” by putting his hand above his eyes on his forehead as if on the lookout.
A wild guitar riff signaled the start of So Pretty, the title track of Kid Dakota’s 2001 album, also on Chairkickers. Applewick and Sally sang along without mikes and ice cube tray players including Marty Dosh came onto the stage. (Ice cube trays are actually listed as an instrument on the 2001 album)
Jackson thanked Alex Oana for coming all the way from California to run sound and Christopher Maguire for purportedly flying in from Tokyo.
He introduced the final song, Winterkill, another dark and not so optimistic song about how frozen lakes kill the life below by shutting out the sun.
Requests for an encore were sadly unheeded, as this was one of the best live shows I’ve seen by a Minnesota band all year.
Kid Dakota plays the Luna Lounge in NYC on Wednesday, October 13th as part of the CMJ music showcase.
Location Info:
Triple Rock Social Club
Artist Info: Kid Dakota
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