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March 31, 2005

Slint Reunited

Amongst a few other things keeping me from posting here of late, last weekend I took a trip to Chicago so that I could hang with my Illinois pals for a few days. On Friday night we all went to The Metro to catch one of the last of the Slint reunion shows. I'm not usually that big on the idea of broken-up bands getting back together for reunion tours, but since Slint never really got to tour in the wake of Spiderland, the whole reunion thing seemed less like a cash-in and more like a way-overdue tour in support of one of my absolute favorite albums of the early 90s.

And indeed, Slint played all six songs off of Spiderland, as well as a few songs off of Tweez and the first non-"Rhoda" song from the posthumous EP. The songs and the sounds were all technically dead-on, with those instantly recognizable guitar tones/noises and that unmistakably great Britt Walford drum sound. Throughout the set there were a few strange breaks and gaps in between some of the songs that had me wondering how such a dynamically gifted band could allow the energy to dissipate during those multi-minute lulls used for guitar-tuning and instrument-switching. But that's really a very minor complaint and I guess it makes sense if Slint's top priority was exactly practiced perfection. Which was pretty much what we got. The show ended the only way a Slint show should ever end, with the Spiderland closer "Good Morning Captain". Other shows on the tour have apparently had "Captain" near the start of the set, but somehow I can't really imagine Brian McMahan returning to a fragile whisper after shouting "I MISS YOU!!!" over and over.

I couldn't get any decent pics from where I stood down below, but above is an overhead photo that I snapped during my brief balcony visit. Left to right, that's Brian McMahan at the microphone, his brother Michael filling in on guitar (during a few songs where vocals & guitar would've been too much for Brian to pull off), Louisville musician Todd Cook filling in on bass, Britt Walford on the drums, and Dave Pajo on guitar. Cy Rawls told us that Pajo was wearing a Voivod shirt...I couldn't see it myself but Cy would definitely know!

Hard to believe that it's been almost 10 years since I took a 15-hour car trip to Chicago in order to spend a weekend at the Lounge Ax watching Gastr del Sol and the recently modified incarnation of Tortoise that had just added Dave Pajo as a replacement for Bundy Brown. Note to self: Please get some of those Tuba Frenzy # 2 interviews posted online at some point before the Tortoise reunion tour of 2015 gets booked...

But back to the present...big ups to Eric B. for scoring our Slint tickets when they went on sale last December and for Tivo-ing the UNC-Villanova game that was going on at the exact same time as the show. The most unpleasant part of this otherwise enjoyable evening may have been unintentionally learning that the Heels were down 21-9 early in the game. We went home after the show and nervously watched the entire game from start to finish without knowing the then-decided outcome. Whew...good thing McCants switched those sneakers and had a second half that was sufficiently "smoother than moves by Villanova"!

If you didn't manage to catch one of the recent Slint reunion shows but are interested in hearing a live recording, just download this entire March 3rd show that took place in Reims, France. And here's a live MP3 of "Rhoda" for you podcast subscribers or single mp3 folks:

Slint (live in France, 03.03.2005) - "Rhoda" [5.70 MB]

Posted by Tim at March 31, 2005 01:18 AM

Comments

Posted by: Paul at March 31, 2005 07:53 AM

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