While they’re both pioneering alt-rock acts that turned college-radio cult fandom into major international success without compromising their idiosyncrasies, Hitchcock’s Britain just seems too far from Yo La Tengo’s Hoboken, New Jersey in every way.īut Hitchcock-who, after not playing in Santa Cruz since two 1998 Catalyst shows with his former backing band the Egyptians, returns solo to play Michael’s on Main on Dec. It was an incredible show, but not one that I would have imagined. Not only had I never heard him play many of his earliest songs, like “Out of the Picture,” “City of Shame” and “Love,” but he also played them with Yo La Tengo as his backing band. Never was that truer for me than when I saw Robyn Hitchcock perform his first solo album, 1981’s Black Snake Diamond Role, in its entirety at the Fillmore last year. Audiences crave these shows because they get to see and hear things that they haven’t before, and might not again. What makes these full-album performances truly special is that they play the other songs from the records that fans have grown to love over repeated listenings, but that rarely-or never-get played live. Supposedly, they only want to hear the “hits,” but most musicians will play those at any of their shows. It’s a form that defies conventional wisdom about what fans want out of a performance by their favorite artists. The idea of live shows based around musicians playing an album from start to finish started off as a novelty, but over the last several years has built into a full-fledged phenomenon that shows no signs of letting up.
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