All New Potato Caboose: Wild Flag @ Union Transfer

All right...

First off, let's get the well-deserved venue praise out of the way. Union Transfer is a great place to see a show. Friendly staff, great sound, good sight lines - I love to complain, but y'know, I just can't.

Now... Wild Flag are a pretty damn great psychedelic band - and yes, a psychedelic band is what they are. Granted, my definition of psychedelic may not match yours. It ain't about drugs, son - it's about musical approach - and the Wild Flag gals have that in spades.

Psychedelia also has absolutely nothing to do with extended jams. (The Disco Biscuits, for example, don't have a drop of psych in 'em.) Now, Wild Flag did go off on two occasions - once during "Glass Tambourine," and also "Racehorse" - but their stretching-out never devolved into outright wankery. They ended up in spaces far closer to those inhabited by the '68-era Grateful Dead, or the "Live At Leeds"- era Who - and I see nothing wrong with that. Regardless of extended whatsits, they played well together as a band, and their launches into the unknown wouldn't have meant shite if they weren't completely locked in as a unit. Thankfully, they were.

Rebecca Cole fills the "secret weapon" role in this band just as Seth Justman did in the late (though occasionally revived) J. Geils Band. She has an uncanny ability to inject just THE right elec. piano and/or organ riff when you least expect it, and I could always feel the impact. Janet Weiss' drumming is solid, ballsy and fool-proof - if she reminds me of anyone, it's Roxy Music's Paul Thompson. Mary Timony and Carrie Brownstein did well as singers and guitarists, and they had a lot of onstage interplay. I'm surprised they didn't cross guitars like E. Bloom and Buck Dharma of BOC. The vocals were good as well - I had no idea Timony could be an utterly convincing garage rock snarler?

Also, their songs were pretty killer. Their s/t LP is well worth checking out.

Should I mention that, on top of all this, they're easy on the eyes? I feel that I should.

Opener Eleanor Friedberg was an utter snooze. Never mind how pretty her sky-blue guitar was. She and her band played a bland, mid-tempo set of wanna-be early 80's bottom-of-Kasey Casem's Top 40 fodder. Yawn.