FRIDAY, OCT. 19:
Spencer Krug is gone from our fair city now, along with my heart. Looking barely over age 14, sitting with one leg tucked under him and pounding at the keyboard like an unbelievably gifted, perceptively emotional child, Spencer Krug takes the stage to sing with Sunset Rubdown. Originally considered a side project to the much larger Sub Pop-ped Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown has now out produced WP with more tours and EPs. Krug’s lyrical inaccessibility is needlessly and tiresomely referred to, but whoever can write the line ‘shut up, I am dreaming of places where lovers have wings’ is a poet, period. With Camilla Wynne Ingr on auxiliary vocals (keys, sampler and snare as well) as the female counter-point to Krug, the band played with their hearts on fire. Opening with a tragically unfinished performance of ‘Shut Up I Am Dreaming…’ and continuing into my morning anthem of ‘The Taming of the Hands That Came Back to Life,’ and entertaining shouts from the audience for song requests (even for a Wolf Parade song that isn’t Spencer’s), the band trotted out a great set. (CH)