This week, the Arts Watch page is featuring the best concerts of the year as chosen by Tribune freelancers and staff writers; today’s lists are by music writers Joshua Klein and Kevin McKeough. For the all the best-of-2000 lists by staff critics and others, go to metromix.com/go/criticsreviews.
– Femi Kuti at Metro on March 31: Further punctuating the renewal of interest in Nigerian Afropop pioneer and activist Fela Kuti, his son Femi toured the States to rapturous acclaim. Femi and his large band turned the Metro into a mass of sweating, dancing bodies grinning ear to ear.
– Jon Langford and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts at the Old Town School of Folk Music on June 16: Langford and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts gathered for a performance to benefit the Illinois Death Penalty Moratorium Project. Though Langford jokingly referred to the set of covers with morbid themes as “hideous songs about death for your enjoyment,” the mood was relatively somber.
– The Spitkicker Tour at the House of Blues on July 14: Though a solo performance earlier this year by emcee Common, featuring special guest Erykah Badu, was equally solid, this inaugural edition of the Spitkicker Tour showcased everything good about hip-hop. The lineup included Pharoahe Monch, goofy DJ Biz Markie, Talib Kweli, De La Soul and headliner Common, all offering fiery, freestyle sets that further solidified the renaissance of intelligent rap.
– Orchestra Morphine at Metro on May 7: The death of Morphine’s Mark Sandman took all his friends and fans by surprise, but instead of wallowing in misery, both factions turned out in force for this tribute. Featuring Sandman’s former bandmates and a handful of other friends, Orchestra Morphine tackled songs from the band’s mournful swan song “The Night” to ultimately uplifting effect.
– Sleater-Kinney at Metro on May 11: Arguably America’s best rock act, Sleater-Kinney returned triumphantly to the Metro behind “All Hands on the Bad One,” its strongest album to date. Yet the highlight was easily a furious left-field cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” that made perfect sense once the song was over.
– AC/DC at the New World Music Theatre on Aug. 31: Still going strong after almost 30 years and as many albums, this venerable Australian hard-rock act arrived replete with a 50-foot-tall, fire-breathing, smoke-shooting statue of diminutive guitarist Angus Young in tow. Not only did the band pull off all the rock excesses with aplomb, it had the guts to start the show with its biggest hit, “You Shook Me All Night Long.” Stubborn critics complain that all of AC/DC’s thundering songs sound the same, but they’re missing the point. AC/DC can still strip the paint off walls with a handful of simple power-chords alone.
– The Delgados and Cinerama at the Empty Bottle on Nov. 11: Two of the UK’s best bands played on one superb last-minute bill that somehow failed to sell out. Scotland’s The Delgados came across as sensitive one second and gloriously bombastic the next, as its 10 members stirred up an impressive squall of sound. Cinerama featured former Wedding Present singer David Gedge, and his knack for rapidly strummed, literate pop anthems never failed him.
— Joshua Klein
– The Flatlanders at the Old Town School of Folk Music on March 4:
Some legendary reputations are easier to live up to than others. While their 29-year-old, one-shot all-star record and respective solo careers have made them icons to fans of alternative country music, the Flatlanders — Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock — treated their reunion as if they were performing for friends at a barbecue back home in Austin, Texas. Telling stories, cracking jokes, and harmonizing together with playful affection, their good natured high spirits animated their country-folk songs.
– Eight Bold Souls with Oliver Lake at the Museum of Contemporary Art on April 28 and Joshua Redman at the Old Town School of Folk Music on June 17: Even under routine circumstances, Eight Bold Souls is a jubilantly adventuresome group, given the Chicago jazz ensemble’s unusual instrumentation — with tuba and cello augmenting a standard horn and rhythm section — and composer/saxophonist Ed Wilkerson’s deft use of its textural, rhythmic and melodic potential. Their performance as part of the local Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians’ 35th anniversary celebration was all the more thrilling for the presence of guest musician Oliver Lake, as the saxophonists’ caterwauling solos turned the music inside out and spurred the band to play with particular fervor. Similarly daring, Redman broke new ground as he pushed himself to the limit while showcasing the music on his new CD “Beyond.” If his original compositions found Redman abandoning the cautious elegance of past work for a newfound intensity and daring, his rendition of “Summertime” found him leaping headlong into the realm of free jazz, as his marathon solos turned the most shopworn of standards into a revelation.
– Buddy and Julie Miller at Schubas on April 1: At their United Center extravaganza at the United Center on Aug. 20, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw had their elaborate light show, big-screen video montages and bombastic backing bands to help them deliver a crowd-pleasing extravaganza. A less-heralded couple who played Schubas, Buddy and Julie Miller, had a troublesome guitar capo and a case of the flu, respectively, that at times threatened to derail their performance. But the latter Nashville couples’ self-penned songs had a emotional depth and musical richness that was a world apart from the crass calculation of Hill and McGraw’s written-by-committee hits. The bond evident in the Millers’ stunning harmonies, on the other hand, left no doubt about their sincerity as they ended the evening gleefully singing “I love you honey, and I don’t mean maybe.”
– Peter Case and Chuck Prophet at Schubas on July 7: Starting from the same foundation in folk, country and blues, the two Bay Area veterans proceeded in wildly divergent directions, their only common trait being their ability to fashion distinctive visions into striking songs. Prophet set brooding melodies to his band’s sharp-edged hip-hop beats, played pinballing guitar solos, and displayed a knack for dramatic flourishes capped off by “Tune of the Evening,” a spine-tingling duet with his wife and keyboardist Stephanie Finch. Case sang plaintive acoustic ballads and frisky shuffles accompanied by violinist David Perales, who highlighted the music’s sense of yearning and exhilaration, particularly as the duo strolled the club like street musicians.
– B.B. King at the Rosemont Theatre on Aug. 22: If the 75-year-old King represented one of the last links to what the blues once was, hometown hero Buddy Guy, who shared the bill with King, demonstrated what the genre all too often has become. Putting showmanship ahead of music yet again, Guy took his inevitable stroll through the audience, interrupted solos to banter with the crowd and mimicked the styles of other guitarists. King, though, was all about the music as he relied on such subtleties as timing and intonation rather than flash and overkill. Filling song after song with his gruffly exuberant singing and ringing guitar playing, King made it clear that the years have only enhanced his delight in his work, and his utter mastery of it.
– Pere Ubu at Double Door on Oct. 20: Since its origins in Cleveland in the mid-’70s, Pere Ubu has continued fashioning its mix of angular guitar rock, whimsical pop, industrial noise and avant-garde artiness despite frequent membership changes and no hope of mainstream success. Its 25th anniversary performance demonstrated the band is still intense and audacious as it performed a career-spanning survey in alphabetical order. Singer Dave Thomas, Pere Ubu’s lone constant, remained the center of the band’s sound collages, an erratic, eccentric and oddly touching figure in an usettling terrain.
— Kevin McKeough
