I didn’t even know who the Jayhawks were in the ‘80s and most of the ‘90s, arguably the band’s defining years. I was a small town kid on the east coast and didn’t dig too deep beyond what my dad put on mixed tapes for me and what circulated through the halls of my middle school, much less be even the least bit acquainted with anything of importance happening in independent Americana music. It was after high school—geez, maybe even college—that I finally discovered the Jayhawks and came to understand the importance of the Minneapolis scene they helped spearhead and define. (Our Band Could Be Your Life is responsible for providing me with much of my initial comprehensive education of the “American indie underground.”) Not that the Jayhawks were among the artists chronicled and chaptered in that book. Though a flagship band of the Minnesota scene, the Jayhawks never really rose to notoriety like their Midwestern contemporaries Hüsker Dü or the Replacements or even Uncle Tupelo. But though they may have made less of an obvious calculable impact, they certainly made a deep enough imprint on America’s musical consciousness to warrant back-to-back shows at the almighty Fillmore this past weekend.

I was actually surprised to see them billed for two nights; neither show sold out. But there were plenty of people in attendance on Saturday night. I unfortunately missed the opener, banjo badass Abigail Washburn, so the anticipation had already collectively mounted when I finally got to the venue during the Jayhawks’ first song.

Disclaimer: I am not very well acclimated with the depth of the band’s catalog. I am quite familiar with their music and their sound, and spent some significant time (retrospectively) with their earlier albums, including 1986’s self-titled debut and ‘92′s breakout record Hollywood Town Hall, and I sang the praises of Mark Olson and Gary Louris’ wistful reunion record Ready for the Flood with likeminded musical friends. But I had not listened to the Jayhawks’ newest album, last year’s Mockingbird Time, until the day before the show, and they played more than a few songs that I did not at all recognize. I am not as invested in the Jayhawks’ catalog as I should be, and that’s my loss. But it was liberating to take in a set, from a band with nearly 30 years on them, without any preconceptions of what to expect.

Ultimately, the Jayhawks are an important band and one that I wished to support and pay my respects to. Did their music sound a bit bland and adult contemporary to my ears? Yes. Did I expect a more rockin’ set? Yes. Did I expect the vast majority of the audience to be over the age of 50? I guess I hadn’t really thought about it, but it was definitely a veteran crowd in attendance that night. Does that matter? Of course not. It just made the bar free and clear every time I went to refill.

But the earnestness in the performer’s set and the sincerity of the crowd’s response made the show worthy of any music lover’s time and money. For the second half of the show, I hung in the back and picked out the lone souls in the audience really getting down, lost and enamored in the fact that they did know every song by the band. I only wished I had that knowledge—and therefore love—to impart on a concert hall full of people. The band sounded fantastic, their musical prowess and professionalism shining through on every track. Karen Grotberg, on keyboards and with a voice of honey, brought a fitting gracefulness to their songs, and the vocal harmonies of Olson and Louris are simply gorgeous, one of the crowning trademarks of the Jayhawks’ music. Though it’s easy and usually natural to equate a band with their glory years, those earlier days of building blocks and raw novelty, to hear the Jayhawks seasoned, at peace and playing together decades after their inception, brings apt and heartening evidence to the truth that America has delivered to the world its own musical treasures.

The Pimps of Joytime lit up Divisadero Street in San Francisco this past weekend, playing back-to-back sold-out shows at the pristine sounding Independent and giving all the patrons in attendance serious cause to dance. The Pimps of Joytime were joined by local stalwart Eric McFadden, who lent his much acclaimed guitar prowess to the group throughout the night. McFadden has sat in with everyone from George Clinton to Eric Burdon and the Animals, and though the Pimps are led by multi-instrumentalist Brian J, McFadden’s presence was certainly a driving force to their live set, his contribution rounding out the band’s signature funk with a darker rock edge.

On Saturday night, the Brooklyn based ensemble opened with “San Francisco Bound”, an appropriate (and auspicious) track that paved the way for a long set of rock infused funk and soul music. And all throughout, the people could not stop dancing. It’s rather rare to see a live band incite a packed room to move tirelessly to the music all night, but the Pimps brought a level of energy to the venue that was palpable and the crowd fed off it, resulting in the sort of giddy excitement that one can only find on a Saturday night at a sold-out club with a really engaged audience and spirited live band.

Perhaps it was the addition of McFadden, with whom the band does not regularly play, but they were a little loose around the edges, a little less than tight and spot-on, but that imperfection did not detract at all from the infectious vibe of the show. Even if you aren’t a fan of all funk music (I, for one, get bored by the groups that rely too heavily on horns), the Pimps’ musical concoction serves as a testament to the vital musical movement of New Orleans, but theirs is also flavored by Latin, Afrobeat, salsa, and pop and redressed with an urban sophistication. The Brooklyn soul scene is a dynamo in the music world these days, with the Daptone label and artists like Sharon Jones and the Budos Band lighting up stages worldwide, and New York’s Pimps of Joytime are a reminder of how commanding music can be when it’s driven by the right blend of old school soul and led with an animated new vision. Even through the boozy haze that saturated the audience all night (as evidenced by the heavily frequented bar), the Pimps of Joytime’s charismatic live show was immensely memorable to the San Franciscans in attendance that night, and I’ll speak for all of us when I say our collective breath is bated until they come back and bring us more.

And it is only fitting that I now tip my hat to Soul Train impresario Don Cornelius, to whom the world sadly bid adieu this morning. Without him and the legacy he paved, the sounds of soul and funk would be much quieter, and much less colorful too.

Earlier this week, I saw Iggy Pop and the Stooges perform live at the Warfield to an audience of about 2,000 people. The band was supposed to swing through San Francisco in September, but their tour was postponed when Iggy broke his foot. And as soon as he bounded out onto the stage, shirtless of course, his compact wiry frame and deranged expression giving truth and life to this rock icon who sneered before us, it became all so obvious why a broken foot befell Iggy those few months ago: At 64 years old, the dude is still a fucking insane performer.

That he is a captivating wild man was certainly no surprise to anyone, myself included. But I had never really understood the extent of his persona until seeing him live and in the flesh for the first time. And once given the opportunity to breathe him in, it is immediately apparent that this reigning godfather of punk is not going quietly into the night. In his weathered and wizened state, he has lost none of his edge; few musical performances are as inspiring as watching him unravel on stage.

And let’s not forget the band, of course. The Stooges are still a formidable outfit. Iggy and drummer Scott Asheton (brother to original guitarist Ron, who sadly departed in 2009) are the only original members still standing, and are today supplemented by another punk icon, Mike Watt, on bass and James Williamson on guitar, who first joined the band in 1970. Tenor saxophonist Steve MacKay, who played on the Stooges’ epic second album Fun House,  feeds an element of jazz into the beast, rounding out the mix. These musicians provide a transformative instrumental narrative for Pop, and together they channel those early days of burgeoning revolution into the band’s Michigan bred music. The Stooges offer a powerful musical platform for Iggy, who then offers himself powerfully to the crowd. (Two lackeys close at hand offered assistance to Iggy when his mic cord looked in danger of strangling him or when he plunged into the pit, which happened often.) And as mesmerizing and quintessential a performer as he is, Iggy is eager to share the spotlight. He urged audience members up on stage with him very early in the show and clearly feeds off the musicians playing behind him; the gratitude for the company he keeps is palpable.

At times, Iggy would lift his head up and offer his mug to the crowd, and it was then that we could see how ecstatic he was to be performing for us, a new generation of fans filled and satiated by his charisma, by his drama. And he didn’t want to quit, seemingly not wanting the encore to end, coming back for more and more, throwing himself into the pit again and again. The physicality of his performance was unbelievable; it’s quite clear how he got that physique. Speaking of physique, Iggy unbuckled his pants late in the show, the entirety of his groin in clear view, and though we collectively waited for his pants to fall down as he continued to strut around the stage, somehow he kept them up just enough and we did not, in fact, get an Iggy Pop full frontal. Magic in its own right.

As triumphant as these gestures were, and as much as the Stooges nailed the performance, I found it hard not to consider Iggy’s age and wonder if we could ever expect to see him in a state of such ecstatic standing again. There was something otherworldly about what he was unleashing, an unfiltered rawness from another time, another age, and to say that he met my expectations, this living legend who changed the landscape of music, would be underestimating the impact of the performance.

Forty years into a career, Iggy Pop and the Stooges are still a consummate band, forever and always beyond the precipice of ordinary rock ‘n’ roll.

The funk tends to bring the fun, and Saturday night’s installment of San Francisco’s 10th annual Funk Festival lured the city’s dance party people out to help Afrolicious and the Budos Band transform the Mezzanine into a full-on soul celebration. With a cold rain falling outside, deterring seemingly no one from making the pilgrimage downtown for the show, the venue became a hot musical haven, the night beginning with local DJ Motion Potion (ne Robbie Kowal, co-founder of the festival) spinning tunes amid projections of Soul Train on the wall behind him. Soul Train is truly one of the best television programs ever, the precedent it set for generations of soul lovers to get down in their best outfits, runway style, never far removed (at least in spirit) from any contemporary display of soul or funk music.

Afrolicious played support and broke up Motion Potion’s set with a long string of tracks, jamming the stage with members from their local musical collective. Afrolicious is known for their weekly residency at the Elbo Room, playing music in the ever-evolving genre of “Afro-Disco-Funk-Dub-Electro-Soul-Latin-Brazilian” as their facebook page succinctly states it. They had at least ten musicians performing with them, inciting most everyone in the room to stretch out and dance to their brand of high spirited “afrolicious” funk (sorry, couldn’t help it), until it became rather unmanageable to move around as the venue reached capacity and people flowed in for what must have eventually been a sold out-show. Exceptionally fun and ecstatic live set. Highly recommended.

Headliners the Budos Band are fast becoming one of the most talked about jazz-funk groups of today, in part because they are signed to the venerable Brooklyn based Daptone label, the home of, among other musical heavyweights, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. The Budos Band are actually from neighboring Staten Island, and that New York City bred sophistication and brashness is certainly present in their music, an eclectic mix of instrumental jazz, funk, and afro-beat. (Get that? No vocals.) They’ve been playing frequently around the country since the emergence of their first self-titled album in 2005 and have been enjoying a steady ascension to notoriety in jazz and funk circles over the past five years. Their music is much more jazz oriented and horn heavy than that of Afrolicious, darker and more experimentally driven too, making them a bit more challenging to flail around and dance to, but there is so much virtuosic intricacy in their compositions, and such a dynamic energy among the members of the band, that you could sit back and not move a muscle throughout their set and it’d still make for an incredibly entertaining show.

All in all, a fine showing of fantastic live music, and one of the most fun nights I’ve had on the town in recent memory.

Straight out of Baltimore by way of Greenville, North Carolina, Future Islands brought their own brand of crazy to Bottom of the Hill on Tuesday night. The show, headlined by one of the Wham City collective’s flagship groups, was among the most entertaining live musical moments I’ve experienced in recent months, and I stood there, along with the rest of the sold-out crowd, unable to wipe the stupid smile off my face throughout their set, immersed in the intoxicating force of nature that is this band I’ve come to love very much. Though their newest record, On the Water, is a more brooding, forlorn affair than In Evening Air, the ecstatically dancey full-length debut that first garnered them scores of accolades upon its release in early 2010, none of the mania has gone missing from their live show. In other words, despite the somber subject matter of lost love and crushing heartbreak, when it comes to delivering the goods live, Future Islands proved on Tuesday night to be harnessing even more of that deranged catharsis than ever before.

But that all came later. First we were treated to an opening slot by a Zach Galifianakis reminiscent (in both appearance and stage presence) standup comedian named Peter O’Connell, which didn’t do much for me but inspired a few laughs from the rest of the audience, and then an utterly strange supporting set by Ed Schrader’s Music Beat. A duo that came out hard with the raw and pulsing “Rats” that went something like “THE RATS ARE CLIMBING ALL OVER ME!”, they veered from doomy and hypnotic tracks that recalled Ian Curtis to a brash hardcore assault, and it was all very compelling; even as some people winced and reached for earplugs their music incited confusion and discussion, which goes a long way in making for a memorable live set. I dug it. But I was there, like most others in the room, to behold Future Islands, and by the time they finally came on just around 11pm the venue was already sweating hard with anticipation.

And as expected, the band delivered. A trio led by vocalist Sam Herring and anchored by Gerrit Welmers on keys and synth and William Cashion on bass and guitar, each part is equally integral to the music’s whole of course, but it’s impossible to not lock into Herring when he performs. While Welmers and Cashion keep their contact with the audience minimal, barely even looking up throughout the entire set, Herring is a theatrical powerhouse. He is both parts devilish and melancholic, staring straight into the eyes of his audience members, sweating profusely and executing some awesomely ridiculous dance moves that look even more ridiculous in his choice of attire (business casual, in black slacks with belt and neatly tucked-in long sleeve crewneck). His voice, oscillating between a ferocious, guttural howl and tender croon, drives the spirit of the music and he is absolutely captivating, unleashing the same range and wealth of emotion that inspires his songwriting to the dimly lit Bottom of the Hill stage, which he effectively, and completely, conquered.

With their strange singular blend of synth and soul, Future Islands have a way of simultaneously breaking your heart while blowing your mind, serving as a reminder of how powerful art can really be when it channels the joy, pain, and darkness present in life and love. When it comes to unequivocally satisfying music, Future Islands are hard to beat.

Still, when I read his interview with Julian Velard a few weeks ago, I had a feeling his second full-length album, Mr. Saturday Night, was right up my alley, and I was right. Its blend of 70s pop and modern wit hit my sweet spot, and my purchase of the album coincided with his most recent arrival at Schubas in Chicago last Friday.

I had tweeted with Velard earlier in the day, and I introduced myself to him as a writer for Popdose as we walked into the back room where he would soon be playing. He said some complimentary things about Jeff, which can only mean that Velard has yet to receive a 27-year old CCM album made by a sitcom star from him. Velard also told me that the show was going to be something different, a whole presentation.

That something different is the titular “Mr. Saturday Night.” Taking the stage to the theme from Rocky and wearing boxing gloves, a bowtie, and a cape, Velard, in character, asked us to pretend that we were watching a live stream of a concert from his 250-square foot Brooklyn studio apartment. In the intimacy of the room at Schubas (capacity: 167), it wasn’t too far from the truth.

The character, a self-described agoraphobic New York Jewish singer-songwriter playing music and taking phone calls 23+ hours a day over the Internet, allows Velard to be simultaneously brash and vulnerable. He’s just a guy trying to live out his dreams, but real rock stars don’t have their concerts interrupted by a phone call from their mother watching online and calling in to say he looks handsome but she’s worried because his left eye is red.

Despite the homemade-Borscht-Belt nature of his banter, Mr. Saturday Night isn’t a caricature of a lounge singer, but much like the young Tom Waits’ sad-sack Los Angeles barfly it seems to be a stylized version of himself. It’s more a unique way of presenting the material than inhabiting a persona. I could probably wank out a review centered on how he is tapping into the Web 2.0 culture of trying to connect with the whole world from the safety of one’s own room, but none of that would explain just how much fun Velard’s show is.

The secret weapon in the equation is Ryan Bull. We’re told he’s Velard’s imaginary friend (he’s wearing a t-shirt that says, “Imaginary”), but he complements the sound with some versatile guitar playing and triggering samples of drum parts and other effects crucial to the presentation (such as the pre-recorded phone calls). From my seat, I thought he looked a little like Peyton Manning, but that’s neither here nor there.

Julian, Ryan, Daryl, and John

But none of this would be important if Velard didn’t have the songwriting chops to back it up. He comes across as an amalgamation of the four main piano men of the 1970s:  In addition to the characterization of Waits, there are elements of Randy Newman’s wiseass satirist (“Fellow Americans”), Elton John’s two-fisted keyboard attack (“Me and My Mirror on a Saturday Night”), and Billy Joel’s love of Tin Pan Alley chords (the unreleased “New York, I Love It When You’re Mean”).  There’s also a good deal of pop-soul thrown in for good measure (he introduces “Sentimental” with a cardboard cutout of Hall & Oates, declaring them to be the epitome of the concept of opposites attract).

Listening to Mr. Saturday Night, I tried to imagine if this album had been released around the time the 30-year old Velard was born. Mo and Lenny would have spared no expense to get it heard, filling the album with a few choice credibility cameos (I like to imagine Steve Winwood singing backup and playing the organ on “Take The Money And Run”) and working it across all radio formats. Instead, he’s already had a bad experience on a major label and is now working small clubs, relying on word-of-mouth and hoping to catch a lucky break.

Opening for Velard on this tour is Sharon Little, a talented singer-songwriter who had some good minor-key songs, with Bull providing accompaniment on his acoustic guitar on all but two of her songs.

At San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall late last week, the Felice Brothers proved themselves a long way from the early busking days that broke them onto the music scene back in 2006. A group from Upstate New York (only two actual Felice brothers among them now), they descended onto the Big Apple five years ago and then quickly ascended up the ranks of contemporary Americana, taking festival stages (including the legendary Newport Folk) by storm and securing opening slots with heavyweights like Bright Eyes, fast becoming a household name (at least in houses where indie Americana is paramount).

Their performance last week, though altogether a standout set, made me long for the days of their stripped down song, when the folk prevailed over experiment and the lyrical content was decipherable. For whatever reason—be it the venue’s fault or their own traveling sound person—their instrumentation was washed together and blasted out from the stage in an onslaught of indistinguishable elements—a bummer from a band with a new, more nuanced sound to promote. Their most recent album, May of 2011’s Celebration, Florida, is a departure from the bucolic folk-rock on which they made their name, as they’ve veered into more progressive directions and are exploring a darker palette of noise. The rootsy guitar, accordion, and fiddle  still drive the music, but it’s all a bit more… unhinged now, ready to splay open or inward at any given moment.

This experimental progressiveness became apparent even within the course of single songs, with tempos would jarringly shift or themes would emerge and then fade away. This change of direction alienated more than a few fans in the crowd, for the room began to clear before the encore and the chatter among the attendees was more pronounced than I would have expected. And as much as all this lent itself to a feeling that the band may be suffering from an identity crisis, there is certainly nothing more encouraging than watching a group of artists (and ones on the brink of fame at that) chuck all conventions and expectations and aim for something more interesting and true to their current state of mind. Whether they really are grappling with an identity crisis or just exploring the outer parameters of musical possibility, the Felice Brothers are unapologetically proving to be a band worth watching, whichever direction they decide to go.

Watch the music video for “Ponzi” from Celebration, Florida

On Tuesday night, the organizers of the Newport Folk Festival held an unprecedented live event in Cambridge, MA to announce the lineup for the 2011 Festival. The announcement was preceded by a fine set from RI’s Brown Bird, and a song from David Wax Museum. Both groups will be performing at this year’s Festival.

In an homage to Festival veteran Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” video, the lineup was announced by audience members holding up cards with the names of the performers. So without further ado, here are the highlights of the 2011 Newport Folk Festival lineup:

The Decemberists
Elvis Costello
Emmylou Harris
Amos Lee
Gillian Welch
Wanda Jackson
Mavis Staples
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
Justin Townes Earle
Earl Scruggs
Tegan & Sara
Carolina Chocolate Drops
Middle Brother
The Felice Brothers
M. Ward
Delta Spirit
John Gorka
Dar Williams
Ellis Paul
The Civil Wars

This year’s Festival will be held on July 30 and 31 at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, RI. For the full lineup, tickets, and further information, please visit the Newport Folk Festival website.

Newport Folk Festival Lineup Announcement (official) from Kitchen Sessions on Vimeo.

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Marc Benioff – chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com, the namesake of UCSF’s newly renamed children’s hospital, and as you can imagine, the biggest financial contributor to this cause – clearly admires the path Neil has paved for charitable work with his annual Bridge School benefit concerts. So Neil was a natural fit for this event. Perhaps not so natural was opening act Joanna Newsom, who started the musical proceedings with a solo performance after an impassioned set of introductory remarks by retired General Colin Powell, who proclaimed, “it’s a disgrace that we don’t have universal health care,” and further remarked that, “I know people have been screaming about it, but I’ve had socialized medicine for the last 52 years.” Ah, the joys of hearing thoughts spoken by a man who has no fear of political retribution. Naturally, he was speaking before a receptive crowd full of folks whose hearts, work lives and wallets are all closely linked to health care. But I digress…

My first remark upon learning of Joanna Newsom’s involvement in the concert was, “I can’t wait to see how this audience is going to react to her.” I was initially heartened to observe the full house respectfully listening to Joanna’s acquired taste of a vocal style, caught somewhere in an intersection between Kate Bush, Emmylou Harris, and a 5 year old flower child with a predisposition to thinking she’s a fairy. But it wasn’t enough that Joanna played her harp with an expert dexterity, enough to make you think you were hearing some other instrument (say, a banjo or a mandolin) if you closed your eyes.

After Joanna completed “The Book of Right-On” and “In California,” the crowd became restless, with enough folks getting up to use the john or grab a truffle to cause what I would call a disrespectful disruption to the intro of “Sawdust and Diamonds.” That’s all it took, three songs. But Joanna is more than just a cutie with a loveably eccentric musical style and a great big harp – she’s also a class act. Cutting straight to the point after finishing the lengthy cut from 2006′s acclaimed Ys, she declared that she was only going to play “a few shorter songs” before ceding the stage to “the reason you’re all here.” And she was probably just as anxious to see Neil as the rest of us, telling the crowd that she jumped at the opportunity to play on the same bill as her hero Neil for such a great cause. And with the promised short songs “On a Good Day” and “Sadie,” that was it for Joanna, having played a very brief, immaculate, and sadly under-appreciated set.

Following a brief intermission during which the high rolling audience had a chance to graze on some desserts and drinks, Neil took to the stage, which was decked out with two pianos, his old pump organ, and various guitars, for a 15 song solo set. Starting with acoustic guitar and harmonica, he began innocuously enough with a few classics – “My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue),” “Tell Me Why” and “Helpless” – followed by a couple of songs from this year’s excellent Le Noise album, “Peaceful Valley Boulevard” and “Love and War,” with an unreleased tune, “You Never Call,” in between. The lyrics of the latter tune alternated between somber remembrances of a departed friend, and the comical juxtaposition of one who’s on the “ultimate vacation” while all we do is “work, work, work” – and the song was rewarded with quite a few very audible chuckles from throughout the hall.

Picking up his black Gibson electric guitar, the rock n’ roll rebel came out of Neil at this point. As I watched those around me appear to be thoroughly enraptured with the first of Neil’s electric songs of the evening, I wondered whether anyone caught the irony inherent in singing the lyrics “down by the river / I shot my baby” at a children’s hospital fund-raiser. Thinking such things is probably far more amusing to me than it should be, but wait – get this. Prior to Neil taking the stage, Colin Powell and Marc Benioff presented UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital poster child and budding young poet Paddy O’Brien, aged 11, with a medal of courage for his battle against a rare form of bone cancer, a battle which sees him winning as he is now in remission (and surely, too, his providing cookies to his fellow patients certainly earned some points). Young Paddy had a prime front row seat for the moment when Neil bashed out one of the stunning highlights of Le Noise, a harrowing story-song called “Hitchhiker,” in which Neil details his long, sordid history of drug use in candid detail, fearlessly calling out hash, amphetamines, grass and cocaine in a plain-spoken tale of rock n’ roll excess. Call that an education, son.

Almost as if the night’s purpose suddenly became clearer, Neil spoke for the first time during the set as he switched to a piano and introduced another unreleased song, “Leia,” as “a song for the little ones.” With a gentle melody and lyrics clearly of the sweet variety (sample: “catching falling leaves from the branches of the music tree”), this was the tune that finally brought some warm and fuzzy intimacy to Neil’s, up till this point, insular and enigmatic set.

The floodgates were open, and so Neil then proceeded to show off his pump organ, but he did not play it. As he explained, the organ – which he bought at a “junk shop” in Redwood City some 20 years ago – had been damaged in the recent fire that broke out in his warehouse, when the water from the firefighters’ hoses mixed with the organ’s water-based glue. So the organ served instead as an all-show-no-go aesthetic mood piece as Neil returned to his acoustic guitar to fittingly play “Long May You Run.”

Following a return to the piano for “I Believe In You” and an electric guitar-based “Rumblin’,” Neil left the stage to a standing ovation. When he returned for a single encore, he quizzically looked around and declared, “I don’t really know what I’m doing now!” Of course, this ended up being interpreted as an open invitation to the audience to call out requests, and after a few songs were called out, Neil ultimately decided to close with the powerful opening track on Le Noise, “Walk With Me,” as he wrung thick electric chords out of his guitar and closed it with a little dance, holding the guitar upright by its neck and shaking it back and forth as its pivot point rested on the floor of the stage. It was a typically idiosyncratic end to a typically idiosyncratic set by one of the most brilliant musical individuals around. It was also a sweet reward for all the good that the deep pocketed audience, which included Stevie Wonder, will.i.am and Beyonce, and the good folks at UCSF, are doing with their contributions and their hard work. Long may they all run.

Joanna Newsom’s set list:
“The Book of Right-On”
“In California”
“Sawdust and Diamonds”
“On a Good Day”
“Sadie”

Neil Young’s set list:
“My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)”
“Tell Me Why”
“Helpless”
“You Never Call”
“Peaceful Valley Boulevard”
“Love and War”
“Down By The River”
“Hitchhiker”
“Ohio”
“Sign of Love”
“Leia”
“Long May You Run”
“I Believe In You”
“Rumblin’”
“Walk With Me”

With the release of this year’s remarkable Be My Thrill, I was already chomping at the bit for my opportunity to see the group live; the new record only reaffirmed that desire. The delicate mix of honeyed and salty love songs and downright sun-kissed folk-pop anthems, delivered earnestly by the husband and wife duo, Deb Talan and Steve Tannen, was the perfect accompaniment to summer’s final bow. So when Mr. Hare alerted me to the band’s November tour stop, it was on.

I have to take a moment to mention the venue. The Hiro Ballroom, located in Chelsea, is possibly one of the oddest spots to feature singer/songwriters. Built below a trendy hotel, the equally-trendy large room is decked out in Asian-inspired decor and looks more like the set of one of Quentin Tarantino’s films than concert hall. I won’t lie, I half expected ninjas to drop from the ceiling at any point, but I digress.

I arrived mid-way through opener Greg Tannen’s set, which is a shame as I really enjoyed the few tunes that I was able to catch. Joined on stage by bassist Tim Luntzel and keyboardist Andrew Sherman (who also provided harmony vocals) Tannen connected with the audience, quipping that his friends gave him grief for the fact that his songs were all of the sad bastard variety before launching into another song about a broken heart. Before leaving the stage, he brought up his brother and sister-in-law, who just happened to be Steve and Deb, or The Weepies, for a family-style rendition of “Vegas Baby,” which Greg co-wrote.

Following a short break, The Weepies started the show on a tender note, with the majority of the band providing the quiet hand percussion behind Deb’s lilting vocal on “Please Speak Well of Me,” a song inspired by the couple’s growing family, and specifically the thoughts of mortality that having children often brings. The band, featuring Brad Gordon on keys, Frank Lenz on drums, Jon Flower on bass and the brilliant Meghan Toohey on guitar and vocals, took their positions for perfectly alive versions of tracks from the bands catalog, landing on the cheery “I Was Made For Sunny Days.” Steve was most comfortable addressing the crowd, interacting with the audience as if he were in a room full of friends.

Friends enough to share the gory details of the story behind “Riga Girls,” which involves Deb walking in on an “accidental” Internet porn viewing. Even more interestingly the story behind the title track of the groups latest record, which apparently spawned from a fight between the couple. Deb warmed up towards the end of the show and shared some precious moments. Riding on the tour bus with two infants clearly must provide hours worth of material, but tonight it introduced “Antarctica.” Feeling the energy of the crowd, they called an audible and went off the set list with “Love Doesn’t Last Too Long.”

The band left on a high note, and as if the proceedings couldn’t be any sweeter, the couple sealed the show with a kiss and a wave goodnight. Should you find yourself able to catch one of the band’s remaining dates, I implore you to make every attempt to do so.

For more insight into what makes The Weepies tick, make sure you read Jason Hare’s brilliant interview with the couple. He also caught this excellent video of Steve and Deb performing “Sing Me to Sleep,” a track from Steve’s solo record.