Sebadoh @ Maxwell's - November 11, 2011
"LESS ROCK!"
Or was it "LET'S ROCK!"? That's what some drunk little kid in the middle of the crowd at Maxwell's yelled out at least five times as Sebadoh took the stage Friday night. No one, not even Lou Barlow (who the heckles were apparently directed towards), could make sense of it.
"It's funny, usually when I get heckled it's by someone I know," Barlow responded after several inane comments such as "that's a really cool guitar," and "I didn't know you played guitar," and--my personal favorite, "who's Jake?"
Barlow was clearly annoyed but that didn't stop the band from putting on a great fucking show at Maxwell's Friday night, the best venue in New Jersey as far as I'm concerned. Blasting through the majority of Bakesale, which its reissue I assume they're still touring behind, Sebadoh sounded just as raw and intense as you would hope. Their current drummer, Bob D'Amico, breathes new life into this batch of songs--tracks like "S. Soup" and "Give Up" sound even more hardcore than they do on recording, sped up for sure, but not sloppy at all.
Jason (a.k.a. Jake) Loewenstein displayed as always, that he's an incredibly gifted songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Growling through the best moments of "Not Too Amused" and "Dramamine" Loewenstein reminded me that Sebadoh should never be considered strictly a vehicle for founder Lou Barlow. And of course it needs to be noted that--holy shit--Barlow kills it on guitar. I wanted to think he was going crazy more than usual to prove to his heckler that not only does he play guitar, but in fact shreds it to death, though this isn't the first time I've seen Sebadoh so I know that he's just always that great.
Sebadoh played Saturday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg as well, and we'll have a full set of photos and a review of that up shortly. For now, check out the photos from Maxwell's on Friday below...
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