Yo La Tengo @Music Hall of Williamsburg, Nov. 16th

Friday night after a fun, greasy barbecue meal at Fette Sau, Ste, Lora and I headed to the Music Hall of Williamsburg for Jersey's finest indie rock band, Yo La Tengo. This was my first visit to the venue formerly known as North Six; I quite liked the setup, which is akin to the Bowery Ballroom, except with more balcony space, and raised areas on the side, and nice bathrooms according to Ste.

When we got there, we happily discovered that the main floor was set up with rows of seats, so we plopped ourselves down in the center of the 3rd row. We sat through a sleepy opening set by this nervous trio called Metal Mountain (it could have been the barbecue-itis kicking in). Then, promptly at 10, our heroes got on stage for a lovely two hour acoustic set. The band played a loose set of songs from throughout their career, taking time to answer questions and tell stories.

While I love how much YLT can blow my eardrums to pieces, I enjoyed this gig immensely. It felt like a nice mix between the time I caught them at Prospect Park, and the time Ste and I were helicoptered into Jersey City to see them at the Loew's Theater. And despite it being mainly acoustic, Ira Kaplan, guitarist extraordinaire, still managed to use a distort pedal and rock out.

Here are a bunch of songs I videoed on my camera -- sorry about the guy's head sitting right in front of me!

"Deeper Into Movies"


"Tom Courtenay"


"Blue Line Swinger"



(And "The Summer," "Hanky Panky Nohow," "You Can Have It All," and "Big Day Coming.")