Hooks So Big

Concert Review: Pelican @ Empty Bottle, Chicago 02-28-08

By Myche J

About three minutes into the first song, Mark leans over to me and says “yea, this is where we should be tonight”. My sentiments exactly. Having never seen Pelican before, I will say that they exceeded my expectations. Blew them away, really.

Instrumental music is an interesting thing. In my opinion, going voxless can be a limiting factor in the eyes of many music listeners, but of course there have been exceptions to this rule (“Telstar”, the “Cantina Theme” from Star Wars, “Rockit” by Herbie Hancock, Jan Hammer’s “Theme to Miami Vice”, “Axel F” – I apologize if you now can’t get some of these tunes out of your head now). On the other hand, how many times have you been rocking away from the opening riffage of a track, it sounds vey promising, you are ready to love it – then just as the singer offers up his contribution to the track you instantly say to yourself “ok, this sucks” and move on? But I digress. When the instrumental thing is pulled off effectively, it can be special. And Pelican pulls it off effectively. So on to the show…

The band pretty much grabbed me by the juglar from the onset. What I like about them is that they are very patient with the songs. They let the jam spill out slowly and smoothly. No need to hurry, we’re all in this thing together. But then when the time comes, they have the ability to dig deep and smack you right over the head! The nice variety in tempo makes a huge impact here.

I get the sense that they really enjoy making and playing their music. It shows. Nothing seems contrived. There were a couple times where one of the guitarists and the bassist both did some similar power moves in unison, and for a split second I thought it looked fantastic and wondered how they got that down (given that they weren’t looking at each other at all). But as I watched them more and more, I don’t think it’s contrived at all. It’s just what the music makes you want to do. The right move for the groove, if you will. Hell, if I would have never seen them live I would have done some of those things whilst jamming solo at home…

Forgive me for not knowing song titles here, besides “City of Echoes”. This show was one of the easiest 90 minutes I’ve encountered. Nothing seemed to drag too long, every note fit together perfectly. A wonderful concert experience.

They made me proud to be from Chicago…