Stephen Malkmus live

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Vic Theatre, Chicago
Friday, March 21, 2008

The patchwork wall between indie rock and jam bands came crashing down Friday night, as a plodding Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks burned holes through the Vic stage with their eyes.

Despite the incongruencies between the genres, Malkmus’ wandering guitar play and madcap verbal wonkery have allowed him to share audiences — a pattern established once he came to dominate Pavement’s direction and the band became more, well, boring. If boiling his music down to two characteristics hardly seems fair, it’s only because what used to be a significant factor (enthusiasm) has snuck out the back. Malkmus and bassist Joanna Bolme were so at a loss for conversation they waxed banal and commented on Chicago’s weather.

As such, the majority of the evening’s 15-odd cuts were a chore, a midtempo slogfest lacking in brio despite its guitar-heavy interplay. More damning was a constant need for propulsion despite the addition of Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney, Quasi) behind the trap. Weiss was effective, but Sisyphean pulling the sprawl of “Real Emotional Trash” together in time, only for Malkmus to yank it apart again. The opening of “Dragonfly Pie” and “It Kills” established a near-unshakable trance that outlasted the attempts of “Gardenia” and “Jo Jo’s Jacket” to de-funk the band.

Malkmus’ own chops have spun aimlessly into a sludgy, power-trio nether region and strip the focus of the album version of songs like “Hopscotch Willie” right off. His affected “ah-ahs” and falsetto stabs do little to divorce him from his canonical ’90s work and it’s hard to comprehend what he hoped to accomplish Friday aside from a long, hard look at the Vic’s southern wall.

The near-capacity crowd was caught in the middle. Uninspired to dance and sing along, extended instrumental escapades routinely had to finish before applause broke in. Perhaps it should be argued that it was more like a Rush or King Crimson concert, then. Of course, one would have to be pushing forward to be considered progressive.

Malkmus would probably die before pulling what opener John Vanderslice did. Vanderslice, a creature of the production chair, followed his set’s final electric cut, “Time Travel Is Lonely,” with an acoustic jam right in the middle of the Vic’s floor.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly