Opening Bands: Fancy Trash, Basia Bulat
Date: May 20th 2008
Band Links: link

It’s been almost a year since I last saw DeVotchKa, who have become one of my favorite bands. Last time, I saw the band perform at Spiegeltent late in the evening in front of a small, but packed crowd. A year later and after releasing “A Mad and Faithful Telling” off of Anti Records, the band played an almost sold out show at NYC’s Terminal 5.

My brother, my girlfriend and I headed down to the city fairly early, got stuck in traffic but arrived at the venue before the doors opened. Since I know how the views are at Terminal 5, I wanted to get there early enough to get the balcony seats. After securing my pass, I flew up to the balcony and got a decent spot on the right. Now it was time to wait an hour for Fancy Trash to hit the stage. They were the first opener and the band is an Americana acoustic folk band. Think Neil Young meets Loudon Wainwright III. They weren’t bad but the singer’s voice got on my nerves after awhile. I’m not sure the crowd like them that much either.

I was in the photo pit taking pictures, switching my lenses here and there. I went to grab my 18-70 kit lens to get some wide angle shots. I couldn’t find it in my bag! I was walking up and down the photo pit, trying to find it. I swore I had it with me, and couldn’t remember what I did with it. I couldn’t it in the bag a second time; I had both lens hoods for my lenses in the bag but no wide angle lens. I asked Ryan Muir, one of the other photographers there if he saw it or had a flashlight. I checked the pit again, and couldn’t find it. I decided to finish the 3 songs and walked out, confused on what the hell happened to my lens. I went back up to the balcony and sat down with my bag to see if it really was there. I started to take everything out, and scooped my hand under the dividers in the bag, and VIOLA! The lens was there! I was relieved that I didn’t have to spend money on a wide angle lens since I just got a new camera.

So yeah, back to the show shall we? The crowd was still pretty scarce when Basia Bulat came on stage. I didn’t know she was coming on stage then, so I ran down to get in the photo pit. There was a lot more photographers in the pit now, so I quickly climbed over all of them and began to shoot the Canadian singer. Basia came out just by herself for the first song and sounded great. I never heard of her or her music before but I thought it sounded pretty good live. I’m curious to hear how her music sounds on CD. After the first song, the rest of the band came on stage and Basia was playing the autoharp. I never saw someone play that instrument on stage before, so that was interesting. I was impressed with the band’s musicianship and how talented they all were. I especially liked Basia Balut’s upbeat songs more but the slower ones were okay as well.

DeVotchKa was up next so I wanted to get down to the photo pit early this time. I was talking with fellow photographers, www.ishootshows.com Todd and onelouderphoto.com Chris Owyoung. I visit their photography websites all the time, and if you haven’t seen their photos, be sure you check them out! But don’t check out their stuff for too long; be sure to come back to Skapunkphotos.com & ReadJunk.com haha. Anyway, DeVotchKa came on stage and I was ready to hear some mariachi, gypsy folk, party music! I’m really bad when it comes to setlists so I’m not sure which songs they played and in what order. I know they played “Head Honcho” first and the song sounded awesome. I was really looking forward to hearing the new tracks off of “A Mad and Faithful Telling.” They played about 5 or 6 tracks from the new CD like “Along The Way,” “The Clockwise Witness,” “Transliterator,” and “Undone.”

They got some of the crowd favorites out of the way early like “We’re Leaving” and “How It Ends.” You might know the song “How It Ends” from Little Miss Sunshine and Gerber baby food (I shit you not!). The one song that was missing from the night was one of my favorites, and that was “Til the End of Time” from Little Miss Sunshine. They didn’t play that one right? I’m not going crazy right? Maybe they have been playing it a lot lately and decided to focus on new songs. Their last EP was also heavily focused on with performances of “Something Stupid” and a cover of Siouxsie & the Banshees’ “The Last Beat of My Heart.” I was REALLY happy that they played the later because it’s such a beautiful cover, and surprised to hear it that night.

The band had members of Basia Bulat’s band performing with them for the evening, and a friend from Denver was playing the trumpet as well. It was great to hear all these strings and horns with the band. Nick’s vocals were ON last night and Tom’s violin playing was magnificent. Just the whole band was great! My only disappointment (and I’m sure everyone felt this way) was that there wasn’t any aerial acrobatics. The acrobatic stuff was being done each night on the tour, but for some reason it never happened last night. Maybe there was some liability issues and Terminal 5 didn’t want them doing it? Either way, I’m sure they will have it next time around. For the encore, they came back with “Such A Lovely Thing,” “Enemy Guns” and “You Love Me.” A Fine encore if I say so myself!

If you’re a fan of DeVotchKa and haven’t seen them perform yet, definitely check them out on this current tour!