Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks at Cedar Cultural Center
Stephen Malkmus keeps it loose in Minneapolis
In a performance that at times felt like I was watching a band jam in a garage, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks hit Minneapolis with a bizarre, yet utterly entertaining show at the Cedar Cultural Center. Spanning two hours, Malkmus rocked through a majority of his new 2014 album Wig Out at Jagbags, with plenty of stage banter happening in between.
Over the course of the night he managed to tell stories about how he saw a hawk devour a pigeon behind the venue before the show, how he’d like to do military base tour with Kid Rock (whose a big Bob Segar fan), about how The Cedar wasn’t made for hard rock, along with plenty of other gibberish. The set stayed pretty well glued together until the encore.
The second song of the encore was “Tigers” from the 2011 album Mirror Traffic and it sounded awesome. After a couple of Pavement tunes, Malkmus then asked the crowd if they wanted to hear “Karma Chameleon”, “Wonderwall”, or “Rock-n-Roll Star”, before busting into his original “Us” that somehow meandered into Nirvana’s “All Apologies”. Watching the Jicks trying to follow Stephen’s lead was quite fun. The encore completely fell apart as the band tried to play the Devo tune “Gut Feeling”.
Malkmus finished the song and the show by slowly walking across the stage dragging his pedals behind before dropping his guitar at the edge. The Jicks continued playing for a few moments looking at each other oddly. Bassist Joanna Bolme walked off the stage as drummer Jake Morris and guitarist Mike Clark ended the night with a short impromptu version of “Hot Blooded”.
Not a care was given by Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks during this show. It was weird, and it was awesome.
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks – Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis, MN 02.18.14 Setlist
Lariat
Planetary Motion
(Do Not Feed The) Oyster
No One Is (As I Be)
Cinnamon and Lesbians
Spazz
Brain Gallop
Phantasies
J Smoov
The Janitor Revealed
Senator
Shibboleth
Asking Price
Stick Figures in Love
Houston Hades
Surreal Teenagers
Encore:
Rumble at the Rainbo
Tigers
Father of a Sister of a Thought (Pavement)
Harness Your Hopes (Pavement)
Us > All Apologies (Nirvana)
Gut Feeling (Devo)
Hot Blooded (Foreigner)
Well said! Twas a great show! No matter how he meanders through the set, intuitively he always remains in time, making it look so improvisational and effortless. But what we experience ultimately, is an artists’ brilliance truly in his element.
Nice guy too!
The band has great chemistry! Really enjoy the energy of the current drummer. They just look like they are having a good time and what a pleasure it is to experience that with them.
But that was the only part that you seemed to get right. ‘Gut Feeling’ was pretty incredible… no falling apart for us. And they probably cared more than you think.
Yeah that show was interesting to say the least and I’m very glad I was there. It’ll probably be one of the more memorable shows this year for me.