Thursday, May 24, 2007

Yo La Tengo | Higher Ground | Oct 7, 2003

Since jds did a fine job with posting The Junior Boys tracks from their recent Higher Ground show, I thought I'd join the party and throw out some tracks from Yo La Tengo's concert at the old Higher Ground back in 2003.

The show is a two disc set and while the sound quality is OK on the first disc, it's fantastic on the second disc where I pulled these tracks from. Here's what I remember from the show:

  • I went to the show with a bunch of friends who hadn't seen YLT before and had only recently been introduced to them. However, each of them enjoyed the show.

  • On the way there, we got pulled over on I-89. Everyone put the driver had been drinking in the truck. So, we quickly kicked the beer bottles under the seats but I thought we were toast. Then the officer asked us where we were going and someone blurted out, "We're going to a concert!" Well, I figured the officer upon finding a pick-up speeding, full of guys going to a concert, would surely have pulled all of us out of the truck and searched it. However, the guy just gave my friend a speeding ticket and let us go. It was a great bit of luck.

  • It was a typical high quality professional set from YLT with a wide variety of songs from their entire catalog, covers and guest musicians from The Aislers Set. I also remember the large crowd being pretty enthusiastic.

  • The Yankees and Red Sox were about to start a playoff series which led Ira, a longtime Mets fan, to go on a bit of a ramble about how he was supporting the Red Sox simply because he hates the Yankees. It's actually captured at the end of the "Stockholm Syndrome" track below.

  • I've heard them cover "Gates of Steel" a few times but it really clicked that night. The recording of it below is boffo.
Here's the schedule for upcoming YLT shows (none in VT) which includes free shows in NYC and Detroit.

Yo La Tengo | Sudden Organ (Live)
Yo La Tengo | Lewis (Live)
Yo La Tengo | Good Lovin' (Rascals cover) (Live)
Yo La Tengo | Gates of Steel (Devo cover) (Live)
Yo La Tengo | Stockholm Syndrome (Live)
Yo La Tengo | Mambo Rock (Live)

Photo (not from HG show) courtesy of Jonny Leather.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lotta good shows I'm gonna miss, not the least of which is Blue Oyster Cult at the fair!

Tanner M. said...

yeah i loved that show... i remember after the aisler set were done i got into a really flirty conversation with the gal from the band, then she gave me all their albums for free... alas, she was on tour, and i was a dishwasher... twas not to be.