Portland, Oregon, USA - April 26, 2001
earpollution.com
at Pine Street Theater
by Mark Teppo

It's been getting on a decade since I've been to the Pine Street Theater in Portland; last time I visited this club, it was called La Luna and I had come with the woman I was dating to see her favorite band: Mazzy Star. Eight years later, the personalized intimacy of La Luna has been re-envisioned by an interior decorator who has a penchant for the burned out husks of industrial warehouses and the OSLC hasn't deigned to give the owners a liquor license. In the interval between the opening of the doors and the Dandy Warhols hitting the stage, we went down the street to the Galaxy Lounge and had a few while perusing the karaoke books and pretending we could remember more than just the chorus of a lot of songs--an exercise which put us in a pretty good mood by the time we returned for the Dandy's warm up show for their next tour.
We caught them late last year in Seattle as they were returning to their hometown of Portland, Oregon. They had been on the road a long time and their show was a streamlined two hours of intense music and, being one night away from being home, they tore through the set with a earnest abandon that made the night even more energetic and captivating. This time 'round, they're gearing up to play Down Under and, taking advantage of the adoring relationship they have with their home crowd, spent this evening getting back into the groove of playing live. In introducing "Bohemian Like You," Lead singer Courtney Taylor said that they needed to reconnect to certain songs for them to work, and that while they had once been the "junkie band," they were now the "I like you" band. An explanation, I suppose, for the inclusion of the requisite hit in the set, and the band gamely tried to find the groove, but sputtered out after the second verse with a mumbled, "Something like that."

That's not to say that there weren't captivating moments which reminds us why we (along with the rest of the audience) adore the Dandy Warhols. The compressed strobe-driven version of "A 15-minute Rave-Up with the Dandy Warhols" stormed the room and the western-themed psychedelic improvisational piece that dominated the latter half of their set definitely has promise. And there are certain songs of their oeuvre that are clearly live favorites for the band: "Godless," "Boys Better," "Minnesoter," and an elegiacally contemplative "Green."

Keyboardist Zia McCabe offered up one of her Basic Laws during a inter-song discussion with the audience: "Candy is for movies; liquor is for rock." Courtney had been offered a lifesaver by an audience member and mentioned that it had made his mouth sort of gummy. But, really, they sort of showed up in that mood that night--a little lethargic, a little like a slumbering bear that has just been woken from winter hibernation.

The woman I had been dating eight years ago when we had come to see Mazzy Star is now my wife and the Dandy Warhols are now her favorite band. There is a certain cyclical nature to all things--ups and downs, highs and lows--and there is a sense of closure in seeing this show at this venue at this time in my life. Yeah, so the Dandies were a little rusty and had some trouble getting into the touring groove. Yeah, and I burned breakfast and wasted the heating element in an espresso machine the next morning.. We all have off days.