Last night I attended my my first concert at the renovated Fox Theater, coincidentally by Fleet Foxes. The Fox is a gorgeous abandoned movie palace in downtown Oakland (across from 19th St. BART station) that re-opened earlier this year as a music venue, which is a great thing to have on "our side" of the Bay. They've been getting lots of high-end shows thanks to APE Concerts (Green Day played the Fox last week) -- it's like someone airlifted the Warfield across the Bay and cleaned it up in the process.
This was Fleet Foxes third Bay Area show, after sold-out appearances at the Fillmore and Palace of Fine Arts in that other city by the Bay, and a side trip to Coachella and Santa Cruz. The show at the Fox wasn't sold out, but it was full of bearded boys and lank-haired girls a lot younger than me. I arrived at 8pm just as opening band Blitzen Trapper were starting their set (punctual concerts rule!), and I was preparing my concert legs for three hours of standing up. I thought BT were pretty good, even though I wasn't familiar with most of their material. They reminded me of the early 70s touring version of the Beach Boys with Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar - lots of facial hair and vocal harmonies.
After a 45 minute opening set and a 15 minute break, Fleet Foxes hit the stage at 9pm sharp. Bill Graham standard time = opener at 8, headliner at 9, over at 11. I've been enjoying the Fleet Foxes album, but wasn't sure if they could pull it off live (they could), or could pad one studio album worth of material in to a two hour show (they couldn't). They played everything from their album, a couple of early songs from their demo EP, and front Fox Robin Pecknold played a batch of new songs and a Duncan Browne cover ("My Only Son") by himself, and the show was still over by 10:30. But it was an hour and a half to remember.
I know it's fun to rag on indie buzz bands, but Fleet Foxes are a band with staying power. Their show had a 21st century Deadhead hippie atmosphere that was refreshing and disconcerting at the same time. In any case, it was cool to see people around me torching up and grooving to the tunes instead of looking bored and texting their friends. These kids are our future and "Blue Ridge Mountains" is their "Dark Star".
3 comments:
I have tix to see the Decemberists at the Fox next month... looking forward to it!!
These kids are our future and "Blue Ridge Mountains" is their "Dark Star".
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But what are they going to name their children?
The only FFs song that sounds like a name is "Oliver James", who I think is a real person, so they just have to have to wait for more Foxes songs with names in them.
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