Postcard from Chicago (or O'Death, Where is thy Sting?)

It was rather a frantic and packed weekend that we enjoyed over in Chicago, and I haven't got over it yet. Barely had our bodies adjusted to staying up till 8 in the morning (GMT) that we were flying home through the night on Monday afternoon/Tuesday morning. Consequently, when I arrived at the train station on Wednesday to go to work, I looked on the back seat of the car to see that I'd forgotten my rucksack, along with my train ticket, wallet, sandwiches, and phone. Definitely a day for working from home.

We left Manchester on Friday lunchtime (I flew over from Dublin the night before) and arrived in O'Hare for 1.30 in the afternoon (7.30 p.m. GMT), headed for the hotel, where we dropped off our bags and made straight for the Hideout Block Party, knowing that things got under way at 6.00. We made it by half an hour or so, which gave us a chance to locate the beer supply (312unes offered the options of Goose Island Wheat Beer (Mart) or a fantastic Urban Wheat Ale (me).

The organizers of this fabulous event very very kindly arranged for Martin and myself to receive All Access passes that enabled us to go backstage and into the VIP areas, as well as to avail of free booze. However, it's an indication of how unused we are to such treatment that we bought our beer the entire weekend and didn't find the VIP lounge until the Sunday night, while hiding from The Frames; what's more, we were only in the place 20 minutes when there was a power cut! Clearly, the VIP life is not for us (like true naifs, we walked around with our passes on display the whole first day, something no self-respecting celeb would do, even if it drew the attention of one or two pretty young ladies who wondered if we were in a band).

First on stage were the eminently likeable Cinematics from Scotland (Day One was meant to be a celebration of British pop and rock), four ridiculously young boys who you'd happily take home to your ma. There was nothing outstanding about their material, the latest in a line of Editors-inspired guitar bands, but they were self-deprecating and received everyone's sympathy because they had come unprepared for Chicago's humidity; their shirts were soaked through with sweat from early on in the set. Bless.

I don't remember much about the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir except that Kelly Hogan came on stage to sing backing vocals on a couple of songs (I'll let Martin edit this review with his own memories once I'm done), and that was enough for me, even if we could barely hear her over the cacophony. I have a vague recollection of quite enjoying their set, but if you were to ask me now to name any of their songs, I'd be stuck. Maybe the jet lag was beginning to kick in.

Jesus, you know, the more I look at that line-up, the less memorable the event becomes. The 1900s, The Changes, yes, we saw both of them. And yet, what I principally recall is that the singer from The Changes wore a hat like the sax player from the Muppets.

Bloc Party headlined on the first night, in front of a crowd of at least a couple of thousand (the Block Party once upon a time attracted a few hundred folks, whereas this year it was a sellout 11,500). Mart and I hung around for a couple of tunes, but we were a long way from the stage, it was 6.30 in the morning U.K. time, and we'd used up all of our beer tickets bar one. Besides, there was better stuff yet to behold.

It isn't possible to do justice to the Scary Toesies Theater with mere words and pictures. Part of you wonders what kind of fevered, deformed brain could have concoted such a pantomime of insanity, while another part of you just about "gets it" and revels in self-congratulatory elation at the genius of it all. I have genuinely seen nothing on earth like the performance on Saturday night. The nearest analogy I can give you is Luis Bunuel meets late-era Monty Python on Mars. The photo above was taken late at night and after a few beers, but that doesn't detract from the general obscurity and absurdity of events. The performance took the form of a quiz show in which a giant ogre-type presenter asked incomprehensible questions, in the form of whines and howls, to a number of alien contestants (one vaguely resembling Frank Sidebottom but with vacuum cleaner tubes for arms), aided by a female assistant dressed like one of the cast from UFO. Failure to answer questions correctly resulted in decapitation. There was no plot beyond this, as far as I could make out, and the colour, noise, and exuberance lent the whole thing a hallucinogenic quality, as though we'd already succumbed and fallen into the deep sleep of a psychopath. Really enjoyable stuff.

Day Two began with the Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitakestra III, which involved anyone who had brought a guitar along with them making as much noise as possible to the accompaniment of a drummer. It was a right fucking racket but entertaining all the same. One bloke had brought his very young daughter along with her three-string toy guitar and she was as much a participant as anyone, seeming not at all perturbed by the fact that her father appeared to be using popular Chica-go-go glove puppet Ratso to strum his instrument.

Cass McCombs I don't remember at all. How cavalier of me. I'm sure he was very good.

The Golden Horse Ranch Square Dance Band did exactly what it said on the tin. They spent half an hour teaching a crowd of urban boho Chicago cosmopolites the moves to the Texas Star and one other dance the name of which eludes me, and then added music. In 28-degree heat, it wasn't the ideal activity; the ideal activity was sitting in the shade drinking Urban Wheat Ale watching a bunch of Yanks square dance, but everyone came out of it smiling, especially me.

Head of Femur contitutes the latest incarnation of local band Femur. They were pretty shite, although I imagine that if you're familiar with their early work, this was like the second coming. Or not.




O'Death I shall regard as the find of this weekend, the sort of Appalachian punk/goth band that gives Deliverance a bad name. These unnaturally pink-skinned guys went hell-for-leather over a 45-minute set of Nick Cave/Meat Purveyor-type jug music that had everyone alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) dancing and laughing. They just really went for it, a fact not lost on the crowd, who loved them for the ludicrousness of their looks and their commitment. Martin bought the album and says it's ace.

No pictures of Dan Deacon, sadly, because he performed at ground level rather than onstage, but some really bouncy dance material interspersed with jokes and barmy ideas; He attempted to get the entire crowd to form a wedding arch around the lot and then everyone, beginning with the first couple, was meant to run the gantlet, like a snake devouring its own tail. I reckon 1/50 of the crowd got through before Deacon's set ran out of time. You can catch his Crystal Cat video on YouTube, and he's selling out everywhere.



Mucca Pazza is a marching band from Chicago who recently appeared on Conan O'Brien but who aren't as good as they think. If you remember The Happy End, that mob with Sarah-Jane Morris, well, Mucca Pazza are a more ramshackle, chaotic, less tuneful version. On the upside, they don't have the middle-class earnestness or simpering worship of totalitarian regimes that typified the Happy End, and there was something cheerfully anarchic about their amateurishness that was endearing.



The Hideout's resident Punk Bank took the stage under the pretense of being Art Brut and gave us frantic versions of "Formed a Band" and "18,000 Lire" (Look at that blue sky!!) A thinly disguised Jon Langford and Sally Timms, one in a gold lame duvet, the other dressed as a sheep, provided an allegorical link to singer Eddie Argos (golden fleece, Argos, you see?!) but their 15-minute set was much too short for this punter's tastes. When the real Art Brut took to the adjoining stage and the fake Art Brut announced to the crowd "You'll be sorry. You see. You'll be back," I was in half a mind to agree.



Not that the real Art Brut ever disappoints. Having seen them before at Primavera a couple of years back, we had some idea what to expect, but with a new album to promote and a new American audience to entertain, the band pulled out all the stops to impress and charm. Argos was hilarious, ploughing into the audience for singalongs and dancealongs (pogo-alongs), and even if you find his posh accent an incentive to dislike him, his vulnerability and willingness to poke fun at himself and the rest of the band disarm you.



The Blue Ribbon Glee Club constitutes one of those fey, knowing, ironic joke bands like Nouvelle Vague only without the sexy French accents, covering songs by Art Brut, the Pixies, the Clash ("Spanish Bombs"), all in the style of . . . well . . . a glee club. Not big on the harmonies, and more of an ad hoc affair than anything else, I think. The impression I got was that this was a bunch of folk who'd met up at college and done this for a joke. But then that's how the Mekons started.

The Frames began to set up on stage, so cue the hundreds of screaming teenage girls. Ew. We wandered away to the beer truck and accidentally discovered the VIP lounge, where we had a well-deserved sit-down. The band did their stuff; singer Glen Hansard is an old fiend of the proprietors of the Hideout, and in his message of thanks he observed that they had taken quite a risk in booking them for such a high-profile event. How true that is, is not for me to say, but when I arrived home in Dublin, one mate of mine came up and apologized to me on behalf of the Irish people for foisting the Frames upon the world.

It was too dark for pictures of Andrew Bird, but we bestirred ourselves to return to the fray in order to soak up some of his brilliance. I happen to be of the opinion that Andrew's music is best experienced in more intimate, enclosed, and quieter venues than this, and tonight's experience confirmed me in that view. Nonetheless, I am also of the belief that Andrew Bird's music is proof that human beings do not need a God in order to experience transcendence or the Sublime. I accept that his stuff can be hit-and-miss, and if you don't like that sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you won't like, but some of his individual songs (and almost all of the album Weather Systems) is guaranteed to bring tears of exaltation flooding from my eyes. This particular show was a kind of homecoming for him; we first saw his band, Bowl of Fire, play the Block Party in 2001, an entirely different set and set-up. But as a result, everyone was full of goodwill toward him regardless of the performance, and nobody was going to begrudge him the headlines. He was well worth the wait.

The night ended with a gang of us diehards sat on the concrete of the parking lot watching the movies from the Chicago Short Movie Brigade. These were of varying vintage and quality and gave everyone a chance to come down or sober up (beer sales had ended by that time). It was also an opportunity to plan the next day's activities. Originally, we'd thought the party would be extended over three days, so we'd booked flights and hotel accordingly, leaving us the Sunday free. "Maybe we'll take the boat tour," suggested Mart helpfully.

We left the hotel room the next morning to look for breakfast but had barely got 50 yards up the street before we had been struck by the preonderance of soccer shirts everywhere. "Hello," we said to ourselves. "This looks promising." We stopped an Asian guy in a Brazil shirt and asked "Is there a match on today." "Yes," he says. "USA are playing Brazil at Soldier Field." "Soldier Field the stadium a half-hour walk from our hotel?" we said. "Yes," he said. "The very same. Why don't you go get tickets for $50 to see Ronaldinho, Robinho, Kaka, Gilberto Silva and mates take on the finest that Reading, Fulham, Derby and Heerenveen have to offer?" "Good idea," say we, and off we trot.



What to tell? That the first USA goal was handled over the line by Boccanegra? That the first Brazil goal was a quality o.g. and that both sides had clear penalty claims that the ref brushed off, the second one just to even things out before he finally relented and gave one to Brazil right at the death.



That Ronaldinho scored from a classic curling free-kick over the wall from outside the box (though not the one above)? That Tim Howard dislocated his finger against the crossbar in the second-half, at the OTHER END of the pitch and me and Mart had his injury diagnosed accurately within a minute on the basis of his writhing (and personal, painful experience)? That the seats have cup-holders for beer and the guy who served us our beer had relatives in Cheshire? That the American guy sat next to us was wearing a United shirt? Perhaps that the whole event was just such a real bonus to one hell of a trip, a surprise cherry on the cake (one massive, fuck-off cherry!) that I'm still not sure what is jet lag and what is disbelief that such a brief excursion could go so smoothly, so wonderfully, and so perfectly in this day and age.

I expect I'll be telling everyone about it for months.




Fed up yet?

*UPDATE*: O'Death tour Ireland and U.K. in October/November. See MySpace page (linked above) for details.

*UPDATE #2*: Brazil to play friendly match against Ireland at Croke Park in February.