Live Review: Richard Lloyd Trio with Ganser at The Hideout • Chicago

Brassneck | October 31, 2024

Richard Lloyd Trio with special guest Ganser

The Hideout, Chicago, IL

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Review and photos by Jeff Elbel

Richard Lloyd brought a taste of the formative punk and art rock movements centered at the New York City club CBGB to the Hideout of Sunday Night. The founding television guitarist brought his Richard Lloyd Trio, which included heavy-hitting drummer Kevin Tooley and sturdy bassist Sean Seymour. “That completes the whole quartet,” quipped Lloyd, introducing his bandmates. The band opened as Tooley blasted into The Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction,” featuring Lloyd’s squirming guitar licks. The set included three tracks from Television’s seminal 1977 album Marquee Moon, beginning with the jagged pop of “See No Evil.”

Leaning into the trio format without the counterbalance of Tom Verlaine’s second guitar, the Television songs peeled back a layer to focus on Lloyd’s innovative playing and arrangements. Lloyd performed without reverence for recorded versions, modifying the tumbling guitar lines to well-known songs like “Friction” while the crowd sang along to the song’s call-and-response chorus. Lloyd included a tribute to Roky Erickson, performing 13^th Floor Elevators’ “Fire Engine.” “The Word” was intercut with the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting for the Man.” Tooley broke a kick drum pedal during the song and performed a swift mid-song repair while Lloyd tugged hard at his guitar strings for distressed bends and quavering tremolo bar fills. Seymour’s bass rumbled against Lloyd’s voice and beautifully weird fills during the set’s most recent original song, “Submarine,” from the 2001 album The Cover Doesn’t Matter.

The earliest of Lloyd’s solo-era fare was “(I Thought) You Wanted to Know,” originally recorded with Chris Stamey and released in 1978 under the dB’s name shortly following the initial dissolution of Television. The upbeat and optimistic sound of “Alchemy” unfolded as Lloyd coaxed sounds like seagull cries from his guitar. The song was followed by the bracing title track to the 1986 album Fields of Fire. Lloyd’s guitar on songs including “Number Nine” featured a creamy overdrive tone capable of ample bite when the guitarist dug in for a solo. Television’s “Elevation” was moody and tense as the trio crafted dark clouds of turbulent sound. Lloyd introduced “Ain’t That Nothin’” as a track from Television’s lesser-known second album Adventure. Tooley and Seymour gave the song a bruising beat and a strong foundation for Lloyd’s expressive fretwork. The show concluded with a cover of psychedelic pop classic “Eight Miles High” by the Byrds.

The devoted Hideout crowd gave enthusiastic respect to Lloyd, who delivered a tightly paced set in his own invention’s singular and influential musical language. Local heroes Ganser opened the show with an inventive set of post-punk and avant-garde noise-pop. The quartet performed several songs, including “Black Sand” from a new album due in 2025. The set was characterized by Charlie Landsman’s unhinged and atonal guitar playing atop the solid but entrancing foundation of Alicia Gaines’ bass and Brian Cundiff’s drums. The coiled energy of singer Sophie Sputnik’s delivery during “Lucky” from the 2020 album Just Look at that Sky marked the end of a compelling set.

Richard Lloyd