Yo La Tengo - Hannukah 2-5

We made it to Yo La Tengo's annual run of Hannukah shows at Maxwell's this year. It was the fifth night and Jesse's Frank and Earthy Blog provides a good description. We wouldn't know. We arrived in Hoboken straight from the office. I parked the Escort in a riduculously small space that made even a Mini driver envious. The Honda was in the garage for service and they fucked up the alignment (another story).

After eating, we made it in to see Half Japanese. Despite having a couple of albums, I knew very little about them. Apparently, this was their first live show for quite a while - accounts vary, as someone claimed 1987, yet apparently they opened for Nirvana on the In Utero tour, so someone's lying or just stupid. Jad's brother is definitely weird, but there was some good stuff once YLT got up there to join them.

After Half Japanese finished, everything got a bit weird. I got designated to drive. They brought on an abysmal comic, who could only talk about sucking dick, even god's dick. Then, the roadies spent ages sorting out the stage, despite them having played the same place for the last few nights. Mrs. H felt a bit claustrophobic and had had one too many beers, so went to sit in the bar, leaving me alone and worried about her. I stayed as YLT eventually made it onto stage. It was much louder than I'd expected. Louder than Sonic Youth at the same venue, which was a surprise. Stayed for the first couple of songs (set list at the link above), but then got too worried about Mrs. H to leave her alone and feeling sick in the bar. Shame, as it sounded interesting. Must find a bootleg somewhere.