Jukes – September 11, 2009

September 18th, 2009 · 46 Comments

The last time Valentiger appeared at Jukes, they played their latest album, “Power Lines To Electric Times,” straight through in it’s entirety.  The band seems to pride themselves on challenges of this sort, but they also crave a good old fashioned drunken dance bash.  With this in mind, they decided to book only one band to help fill three hours,  summoning up-and-comers, The Little Village.  They began the night with their concoction of  jagged rock riffs, mixing with thumping drums and manic vocals.  Their set lasted only a little over a half hour with two Black Keys covers, before Valentiger hopped up on stage.  Kehoe explained before the show, “I’m excited to play a more ‘rocking’ show at Jukes tonight.  It’s been a while since we really let loose and this usually seems like the best place in town for us to do it.”  And so the first set mimicked their usual 45-minute slot, making sure to include their prettier songs “Never Ready,” “Courses” and “Man on Fire,” but while still bringing in a few reclusive covers like the Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man” and Belle and Sebastian’s “Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying.”  And as promised, after a short break, the band swung into full force with a slew of upbeat covers and originals.  Although some of these songs were undoubtedly dusty, highlights include Bowie’s “Suffragette City” and Shirey’s improvisational solo during Oasis’ “Don’t Look Back in Anger.”  This was only to be topped by his Pavement solo during “Summer Babe,” where he departed the stage and shred, immersed within the crowd below.  On a whim, the band then led the persistent listeners through an intense sing-a-long of CCR’s “Have You Ever Seen The Rain?” complete with Rider’s intentional, nonsensical mumblings through verse two.  Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” brought it all to a close, while Kehoe spoke beautiful words over Shirey’s closing guitar work.  Some brave soul attempted a 9/11 chant to no avail and the following dance party failed on account of a skipping jukebox.  But this still could not stop the mob, who migrated over to the band house where the mayhem subsided somewhere near 5AM.

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