on february 8th of this year, the reclusive mark linkous came to town with his band, sparklehorse, and delivered what might be described as a sonic dose of lithium. linkous’ battles with depression and substance abuse are legendary amongst the indie-literati; as a result, he’s only released four full-length sparklehorse albums in the past 15 years.
the performance was solid, the song selection representative of the entire catalog. but something about the whole affair felt like a support group meeting dressed up as a rock show. this wasn’t the band’s fault, unless you hold linkous responsible for appealing to an overly earnest group of folks who seem to want their damaged hero to succeed so badly they’ve lost the ability to discern the merely okay from the truly great. the vibe wasn’t ambulance-chasing-esque like it can be at a daniel johnston show, by any stretch. all i can is that the perfect blend of melancholy and bliss that sparklehorse can achieve on record didn’t materialize as often as it might have given the songs played. and the audience was complicit, perhaps, in not coaxing it out of the band for fear of rattling the shattered genius. or maybe that ’s just how the bourbon remembers it.
jesse sykes and the sweet hereafter put on yet another fantastic performance, full of slow, aching melodies punctuated by phil wandschach’s mesmerizing guitar lines. i’ve written about these guys before, but i’ll say it again: buy the records and see them live any chance you get. this is music for people who like to think and feel at the same time.
the fillmore staff were not allowing audience taping (maybe an edict from sparklehorse’s label?), so unfortunately, all that exist are a couple of tracks that materialized out of the ephemera. here’s the final encore of the night, knives of summertime.
