Built to Spill “Gone”

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The cold, wet and dreary Saturday night made it the perfect time to see the Meat Puppets and Built to Spill play because their music seems to be best appreciated when there are emotionally deep thoughts raining down upon your mind. It also was a good time to see the Meat Puppets again since it was the first time that the brothers Kirkwood – Cris and Curt – were tolerating each other enough to be play music together. The Puppets were pretty damn spectacular, playing hard and on point like it was the mid-90s again, with Cris squeezing ethereal notes out of his guitar and Curt bopping around and thumping out bass lines almost effortlessly. Toward the end of their set they announced that the next song was from their forthcoming album, and as the notes started seeping out it sounded strangely familiar, almost too familiar. Then came the realization that it was a cover of Wings’ “Let Me Roll It.” Man, you talk about a band killing a song, the Puppets made the whole night with that cover and the smile on peoples faces continued straight through Built to Spill’s set, which was basically a retrospective of songs nearly everybody in the Echoplex was hoping they would hear. The band only played one song off of their latest, You in Reverse, and one off their forthcoming record, and the rest were a hit parade of song selections that unfortunately fell short at times but were nonetheless great. They closed their set with “Carry the Zero,” which some dude in the crowd yelled for the entire show and probably distracted himself from noticing that he was missing all the other jams — it sure was distracting to everyone else and, actually, we all were as happy as him that they finally played it.

– Alex Roman