Last night was a crazy night of show programming here in Iowa City. There were two major acts taking stage at different venues. One was Del the Funkee Homosapien. I’m going to have a write-up about that too, but I’m writing that for Little Village. If you want to read that one, you’ll have to go over there and read it when it pops up (I don’t know when this will be honestly). In the meantime, I did go to both shows, so let’s start with the one I attended first.

The show started off rather mundanely with the three band members walking on stage and describing the concept for this tour: they play two sets and the first set is chosen by a Wheel of Fortune type set-up. The young lady chosen from the audience spun once then spun again and landed on Condo Fucks, the YLT side project. For the first set, the audience got a hot platter of spirited garage/scuzz-rock in the vein of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, replete with Ira snarling into the mic, a two guitar no bass attack, and a few necessary guitar heroics. I was personally thrilled about this set and a couple people around me were as well. The overall impression that I got was that the audience was not so into it as it is just very different from regular Yo La Tengo. Many thought it was way too loud. I’m going to disagree on this one. I personally thought it needed to be louder, but I also like loud rock and roll. The tone changed after the break.

The audience became more lively (and moved to the front of the stage) during the second set in which the band rattled off both new and old songs, doing versions songs from Painful, I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-out, Popular Songs, and I’m Not Afraid of You & I Will Beat Your Ass. I say versions because the way that they played a very different version of “Autumn Sweater.” It was good, but guitarist Ira Kaplan was doing this weird faux-scat thing that sort of worked and sort of didn’t. Other songs weren’t as far off as this one was though; they stuck far closer to the book for “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House.” The audience seemed to have a mixed knowledge of the band’s repertoire. They knew a lot of the newer material, but less of the older stuff. It also seemed like a lot of people were thrown by the dynamic sonic shifts during their set. They would go from a rager into a very quiet song very rapidly, which I think upset a lot of people. By the time they started playing “The Story of Yo La Tengo,” a lot of people stared with their eyes glazed over. For me, this was what I expected from this band live: a dynamic, compelling, interesting set with few breaks (they flowed between songs excellently) and a lot of quality songs.

While the auditorium was less full than when the second set started, those that stuck around were treated to an encore of the always excellent “Sugarcube” and a couple of covers, the most poignant being sung by drummer Georgia Hubley of a Sun Ra song. She did an excellent job and the song was really, really good. When the house lights came up, I was glad that I spent 25 bucks on my ticket as that show was more than worth it. I got to see a band that I’ve been fond of for many years and, more than that, I got to hear two sets of them. If there was only one downside to the entire night, it was that I didn’t get to hear “Stockholm Syndrome,” which is still my favorite song from them. Otherwise, a very, very solid night.