before i begin, special thanks to brian for my awesome new header image!
ive been a fan of akron/family for a little over two years now ever since i was introduced to them by ulia. shortly after, my friend nadia saw them live and couldnt stop talking about how great the show was, and ive been waiting to see them ever since and was finally lucky enough to catch them at the magic stick, one of my favorite venues.
so with nadia in tow, we headed downtown in time to catch the first opening act, slaraffenland. someone told me they were from denmark and their music was pretty interesting and excellent. lots of 4 part harmonies and lots and LOTS of instruments, just what i like. this wouldnt be the last we saw of them though.
slaraffenland – meet and greet
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next up was jeffrey lewis. his first song didnt really wow me, but the rest of his set was all about expecting the unexpected. his second song was “the creeping brain” which was performed with a comic book he illustrated and it was pretty excellent. a few songs later he performed an a capella gangsta rap about the mosquitos in maine that had the whole crowd laughing. my favorite line was something about killing a mosquito on the wall and leaving him as a reminder for the rest of his crew.
and finally, the main event…akron/family. after one of the guys cut in front of us in line at the bar (its ok, we forgive you), the show began and i learned something i never knew about akron/family. they are…..a jam band!?! i guess since the majority of my exposure to them was their first album (which was not represented at all during the show), i had no way of knowing or expecting this, but it was a great surprise and definitely brought me back to my days as a quasi hippie. i felt like a fool that i didnt listen to their newest album until after the show but it all made sense anyway. the highlight was of course “ed is a portal”, which the crowd had been waiting for the whole night. in fact, around the 2nd or 3rd song, as the band played a steady drum beat, the audience started chanting the opening “ahhhhhhhhh ah ah ah”s of the song, but the band made us wait, so the crowd really got crazy when they did play it. i ran into my friend kyle at the show, who somehow ended up on stage at one point playing recorder with the band (see pics below). special thanks to kristen kennedy for the pics! hoping to add some pics of the opening acts soon.
a few songs into the set slaraffenland came back on stage with all of their instruments and added to all that was going on. im not even sure how many songs akron/family performed because the whole show was sort of one continuous song. one excellent, exciting and completely entertaining song. the best part was that even though i knew almost none of the songs, i rememered almost all of them when i finally listened to the album. the name of their latest album “set ‘em wild set ‘em free” was clearly not in jest.
akron/family – everyone is guilty
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