Yo La Tengo + Jackie-O Motherfucker - Crystal Ballroom (Portland, OR; Oct. 20, 2009)

Buttons. On the banner were buttons. All shapes and sizes of buttons, hanging down from the rafters. At first, I didn’t think anything of it. Most bands have banners; there is nothing new about that. But as the Yo La Tengo show rolled on, floating through genres and defying classification, I saw that maybe there was something deeper wrapped up in those stray buttons. Maybe the buttons were like the textures in the songs. Bits and pieces drawn from other places, that when put to the right use, make everything come together exactly how it should be. And that’s what the show was on Tuesday night, a bunch of stray buttons that fit perfectly to where they were placed.

I can’t say the same about the opener, Jackie-O Motherfucker. They played these long, spacey songs that didn’t go anywhere and had a singer whose voice didn’t connect with me at all. If I had found more in the jams that I could latch on to, I think I would have been fine, but instead I got a dull haze mixed with some echo effects. I don’t know if I caught an off-night or if it just wasn’t my bag, but what I do know is that it wasn’t how I wanted the show to start.

When the lights went out for Yo La Tengo, James McNew (bassist/vocals) was the first to take the stage. Out next were the husband and wife team of Georgia Hubley (drums/vocals) and Ira Kaplan (guitar/lead vocals), who arrived quietly, attending to their instruments, as they got ready to perform. They opened against type by starting soft and dreamy, with a mood that felt more lullaby than greeting. Their choice calmed our nerves before the band downshifted and trampled on them with the second song. Here, Ira unleashed his firehouse-red Jaguar, cracked and worn from what looked like years of abuse, letting loose an ocean of feedback and convulsions—it looked like an epileptic fit—upon the crowd.

In the sounds created, you could hear the maturity gained in 25 years of playing. The overlaps that stacked upon each other, the wahs that sliced through the fuzz, the carefully planned loop . . . it was all there, honed over time and now, manned (and womaned) by a group that was in complete control of these nuances. They made dissonance seem beautiful, ratcheting it up until they decided to let us land safely and collected after a bumpy ride. And that was just one song. Which is all it takes to see that this is perfect music for those that like to dig deep. A thinking person’s favorite band.

A lot of the best stuff came out of the long songs, like “Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1),” where the band went dark and ominous. The music was winding until it locked into a circular movement, depositing you right back to the same place after each echo pulse. Ira came across like a stranger whispering a dark prophecy, accentuating it with guitar freak-outs that sounded like yards-away thunder. I loved it. They got me again during “The Story of Yo La Tengo,” when the noise and decibels radiating out caused your entire body to shake. It was kind of shocking, like that feeling of being so close to the speaker during a hip-hop concert that the bass makes your heart skip.

Yo La Tengo didn’t spend all of its time leading its devotees on a fantastic voyage of feedback, though. For instance, about mid-way through, Georgia stepped up to the mic (they all share vocal duties, though Ira tends to sing most of the time), and sang a lovely—and I mean lovely—rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Fourth Time Around.” With James on a 12-string acoustic and Ira on a 6, they backed her as she sang a version that one would love to put on before bed; warm and safe under the covers as you start to drift off. At one point she forgot the lyrics, finding them on a piece of paper she was clutching. But even that couldn’t break the moment or the mood. The crowd cheered her on, asking her to go forward. And with a smile she did.

Other highlights included a bass-driven version of “Here To Fall,” full of space-funk keyboard from their latest disc Popular Songs; “Sugarcube,” which the crowd loved; and a body-moving number called “Mr. Tough,” sang in a playful falsetto by James. At the end of “Mr. Tough,” a girl yelled out from the back “Old shit!” and in the same falsetto voice, James said “What did you call me?” I wouldn’t have pegged them as funny, but they were. Ira took offense to that girl’s comment though, misunderstanding it as “Bullshit” instead of “Old shit.” And instead of realizing that she wanted to hear old songs, he thought she didn’t like the last one and asked her why, explaining that he knew it wasn’t the best version of the song ever, but give them a break. Also funny.

The finale was another look-back at Dylan. This time they sang, “I Threw It All Away,” a song about regret. And though they sent us out with a song about looking into the past and feeling like you’ve taken a wrong turn, no one could ever look at Yo La Tengo’s past, present or future and make that argument. They are a band for those that love music, and I will see them every time they come back.

DOWNLOAD: Yo La Tengo - Mr. Tough (MP3) or Follow us for more Yo La Tengo MP3s (Twitter)

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