Quitzow, Battlehooch, and Setting Sun at the Rickshaw Stop
Categories: Last Night
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| Setting Sun |
Battlehooch
Setting Sun
August 3, 2010
@ Rickshaw Stop
Better than: A musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream set in outer space.
Let it not be said that Crispin McCabe of SFitall books a show unimaginatively. It can't be easy to place local favorites Battlehooch on any bill, but especially not when you place them between two bands with diametrically opposed musical idioms and who also happen to comprise the same personnel. (When Erica Quitzow thanked Setting Sun at the end of the evening, in keeping with headlinerly decorum, the audience burst into appreciative murmurs about Frege's Puzzle. (Note: this is obviously untrue.)) Somehow it worked, anyway, and last night's tri-cornered show was, as it turned out, a bewildering success.
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| Battlehooch |
As Setting Sun, led by Levitt, the trio passed the time with unassuming professionalism, playing mostly selections from the deceptively mellow Fantasurreal, released in June on Young Love Records. Levitt (who plays almost everything on Setting Sun's records) writes and sings with a practiced weariness that recalls Elliott Smith here, Lou Barlow there, M. Ward and the rest of that ilk in between. Live, as on record, he plays it close to their precedent without owing them any particular debt; his songs need no particular accompaniment, but sound all the more resolute for having it. Most last night were joined by invisible synth or horn lines -- the dour midlife-reincarnation ballad "One Time Around" seemed to have its own heavenly mariachi band -- but maintained the fetching, sometimes majestic simplicity of, well, a setting sun. (Also, during the closing number, "No Devil Me No More," from 2008's Children of the Wild, Levitt's 7-year-old cousin, Xander, showed off some pretty sick breakdancing skills -- take that, latecomers.)
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| Quitzow |
Critic's Notebook:
9:15 p.m. A surprising number of mustaches in attendance.
9:20 p.m. Previous observation is an excellent example of synecdoche.
9:40 p.m. Wait, there are actual rickshaws here.
10:08 p.m. Update: mustaches all appear to be Battlehooch-related.
10:09 p.m. For each mustachioed young person in the band, the burden of proof rises by an order of magnitude.
10:40 p.m. Mustaches in serious danger of outnumbering shirts onstage.
11:11 p.m. Wait, did Levitt shave between sets?
11:57 p.m. Neither Quitzow nor Setting Sun played their current single. Classy.
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