I saw Mike Doughty in concert last weekend (Saturday 10/22) at the Webster Hall. Here are some of my thoughts & observations about the event:
The venue was a rather nice concert hall that apparently has something like four stages on different floors so that they can put on different events at once (or have a variety of different music themed rooms) for parties. The layout of the stage that Mike was on was very similar to the House of Blues in Hollywood (though the general atmosphere was much better). Basically it was a stage about a bit narrower than a basketball court in a square room about half again as large and square with a balcony that overhung the floor in the back. The floor was just open for standing except for some small tables along the walls on either side along the walls.
The opening act, Orenda Fink was very mellow, it seemed very similar to Cat Power, and consisted mostly of Orenda singing and occasionally playing some guitar with her band-mate (missed her name…) playing keyboard and doing backup vocals. I might have expected this given that Orenda is half of the band Azure Ray. However, Orenda’s music lacked the mix of strings and piano with the synthesized sounds that I found very appealing about many of the songs on Azure Ray’s most recent album, Hold on Love. Don’t get me wrong here, I really like mellow music but it didn’t match with what I was expecting from someone opening for Mike Doughty, who is definitely not mellow. They did do a very nice cover of The Flaming Lips’ Do You Realize that worked especially well with just keyboard and vocals.
True to form Mike Doughty started off his set joking around with the wordplay, “The name of my band is the name of my name!” before introducing himself. This attitude, which carried on throughout the concert, kept the audience engaged and excited throughout his set. At one point, after breaking a string and holding up his guitar by the slacking wire he proclaimed “I would get a backup guitar, but everyone seems to love the drama.” He also made up extravagant names for his drummer Pete McNeal that became more flourished with each telling; what stated with “Raul” became something like “The Duke Raul Ledgebar von Faren; a mysterious man cloaked in enigma and mystery” by then end (I wish I remember exactly what it was because it was even better than that). In another humorous moment during the show, the upright base player, Scrap Livingston, delivered the random “Scrap-Fact” of the night (which was: “The shortest verse in the bible is ‘Jesus wept.’”).
The band’s performance was excellent with a precise, yet free flowing style that complemented musical style very well. I was particularly impressed when, while Mike changed his guitar string, the band, consisting of the aforementioned Pete & Scrap as well as Dan Chen on keyboards improvised a tune that morphed into the next song of the set as Mike finished tuning. In another part of the show, Mike ushered the rest of the band of the stage for the “Show Within a Show” were he played a few songs from his earlier solo effort Skittish & Rockity Roll albums (his newest album Haughty Melodic was first recorded with a full band) as well as St. Louise is Listening, a Soul Coughing tune.
Another part of the praise I seem so desperate to heap up is how great Mike treats his fans; before the last song of his encore he announced that he’d be signing stuff after the show at his T-shirt booth. True to form, he showed up twenty minutes or so after the set ended eager to actually talk to each of us there, pose for pictures, and sign all kinds of merchandise. This provided me an excellent opportunity to give him a DVD of Battlestar Galactica Season 2 Part 1 since the whole band apparently loves the show. Mike’s response when I gave him the disc: hand’s it to his manager(?) and says “Guard this with your life!” A man after my own heart… sigh… I hope you enjoy every minute of it Mike.
For your curiosity/ammusment, some pictures from the show are available on Mike’s Blog.
