Arriving too late for Jesca Hoop’s entire set, even the final song I did catch was a bit of a departure from the dressed-down first time I saw her open for The Polyphonic Spree this summer. The former nanny of Tom Waits’ children did a great version of the song “Out the Back Door” from her fantastic, current album, Kismet. Hoop was dressed to the nines, mad hatter headgear perched atop her pretty, yet messily piled curls - it was absolutely surreal to walk into this song, as the timid crowd avoided the stage and were bottlenecked in the back of the room as the surly looking but always sweet security guard attempted to herd people towards the front. It’s a damn shame really, because this would be a great song for people to get down to. The song is ethereal and dreamy despite the fact that it’s basically about wanting to get your party on and incorporates gangster-rap lyrics that end up making it totally precious…
“Out the back door, Out the back door, Rollin up the window, Smoking up some endo…”
I don’t understand. Almost none of pictures I saw from this night show Matt Pond smiling. In fact, he looks sullen. Well, he wasn’t sullen. While his smile evaded the camera clicks, he himself was pleasant, bantered warmly and let out multiple infectious chuckles that made him sound either nervous or a like a stoner. This may sound odd, but to summarize the night, it was a pleasant rock show. I’ve never used that adjective to describe a show before. But it was what it was, and in the mildly under-attended performance on a semi-lethargic Monday night, it just felt good. The bands seemed happy to be playing together and were more than proficient musically. Personally, I couldn’t manage to take my eyes off the virtuosity of Garth Algar’s brother Dan Crowell on drums (sorry, obligatory Wayne’s World reference) that rocked so hard, the mic kept trying to get away.
And Matt Pond...
Matt Pond - Photo by Jon Behm
Pardon the estrogen-fueled gushing, but the man is gorgeous and has a sensitive and soothing voice to match, which always makes for a well-crafted package. Tucked away on the left was, Steve Jewett - the guitar control center of the entire get up - fabulous as he stood understatedly on stage. And even though there was no banjo-awesomeness of “Magic Boyfriend” or the currently radio friendly charm of “If You Want Blood,” the set itself managed to encompass the mid to current era of Matt Pond PA’s music with songs like Last Light’s “Taught to Look Away” even if it was obviously missing the album’s fetching appearance of the perfect voice of Neko Case. “Lily Two” from 2004’s Emblems and the beautiful “Brooklyn Stars” off the following year’s Several Arrows Later were also perfectly incorporated into this set that honestly ended on far too low of a key for the three song encore.
