Full circle! For the first time, I get to post an artist for the second time. Tilly and the Wall was the first band I posted here a couple years ago when I got the urge to make a blog just for the stuff I record. I missed their show earlier this year at the Rickshaw Stop because I’d seen the British Sea Power show the night before and I didn’t feel like going out again the next night since it was Noise Pop and inevitably they pack so many bands on the bill that you’re soooo tired before the headliner gets on. Oh well.

Tilly and the Wall’s new album “O” is definitely one of my favorites of the year. It doesn’t hold itself to anyone particular sound, they’re experimenting with a lot of stuff to great success and really bringing a more rock sound to their music while retaining that whole thing that made them awesome in the first place. I think a lot of the songs were definitely conceived with the live show in mind, and that they perhaps needed a few songs where there wasn’t as much focus on the novelty of someone in the band tap dancing out percussion. There’s still plenty of that, but at the show it seemed like at least a little less prominent than in the past. There was a real drummer, but I didn’t see him do a whole lot. I’m not terribly sure how I feel about Beat Control either, since it doesn’t really sound like anything else they’ve ever done and not necessarily in a way I like. I don’t think there was anything but a pre-made beat and keyboards on the song which is totally weird compared to 3 guitars, percussion, and keyboards. I’m glad they didn’t do a whole album like that because while I like their voices, I don’t like the 80’s style dance music revival thing going on. Maybe it’s because I had enough of it the first time and I’m just not in nostalgia mode yet or whatever, but it doesn’t work for me. I guess for the kids that weren’t born until ‘85 or later it’s awesome because it’s brand new to them, but really the song sounds way too much Miami Sound Machine to me and that’s just not my thing.

Anyway. It was a good show! They threw out balloons before the show and the hipsters tried to act like balloons are totally not cool. Seriously guys, have some fun every once in a while okay?

As an aside, I sorta got “busted” during the show. The band was cool with me taping their last show in SF, so I figured it was okay again this time and I didn’t REALLY try to do any sort of hiding of my equipment but I put it all under a hat to keep it out of the way from anyone who might set their drink down on or near my stuff. The security guy came around and asked what I had under the hat, turns out that there was a blinking light and a glow that made it real obvious that I was taping and they had no video/flash photo signs everywhere and he was making sure I wasn’t rolling on video I suppose. Luckily he didn’t shut me down and was totally cool with things.

Setlist:

1. Intro
2. Too Excited
3. Alligator Skin
4. Rainbows in the Dark
5. Falling Without Knowing
6. Bad Education
7. Reckless
8. Beat Control
9. Cacophany
10. Pot Kettle Black
11. Tall Tall Grass
12. The Ice Storm, Big Gust, And You
13. Dust Me Off
14. Sing Songs Along
15. encore break
16. Shake It Out
17. Night of the Living Dead

download the whole show as a .zip file
download the show in lossless FLAC from Dimeadozen.org (registration required)

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 11:41 am and is filed under concert.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.