nevver: FREE! Wire & Times New Viking Live TONITE! Good...

nevver :

FREE! Wire & Times New Viking Live TONITE!

Good show. Still energetic in their 32nd year as a band and brandishing a robust sound. I expected to hear zero hits. And by hits I mean anything off of the first three albums. I was wrong. "Lowdown"! "The 15th"! "Pink Flag"! "12XU"!!!

Missed out on Times New Viking for the third time. Been wanting to see them in hopes that their live show would change my opinion of them. That opinion: …eh. I'm planning on getting more in depth on this subject in a future post, but it's basically this: I feel like I should like them (lo-fi à la Westing -era Pavement, pop blanketed in woolen distortion), but still don't.

Back to Wire before I go: I'm in the restroom of Irving Plaza, turning beer into water, still stunned by not only a second, but third encore after they played "Pink Flag". I exit the stall and start washing my hands when a man between 35 - 40, glasses, red hair balding, stocky, enters saying, not in the melody of the song, but in a shell-shocked monotone that stays in time, "…in a corner…in a corner…in a corner…".

1! 2!

X! U!