I don’t know what was in the air but I think The Breeders’ show at the Salt Shed last Monday night might very well have been my favorite show I’ve seen at that venue, and I’ve seen some killer ones. I did not go into the show as an ageist simply because I didn’t know Kim Deal and her sister Kelley were both in their 60s; not that would have clouded my opinions of their performance but suffice to say, most bands with 20-30 year olds playing in them usually don’t even sound that good live. So, considering that The Breeders absolutely blew the salt off the Shed by playing two of their most critically acclaimed and successful albums back-to-back live for the very first time in their history coupled with the fact that openers Man On Man gave one of my favorite performances of a band I had never even heard of before seeing them, I’d say that my evaluation of the show being the best I’ve seen at The Salt Shed checks out. I am definitely not crazy.
I’ve seen a great deal of queer bands live but Man On Man takes the cake for the gayest; an honor I’m sure they’d be thrilled to have bestowed upon them. Man On Man, formed in New York during the pandemic, stars partners Roddy Bottum and Joey Holman and they write really great, fun, catchy, flavorful, distorted, colorful indie pop that sounds straight out of the late 90s and/or early 2000s. The first thing the couple did when they graced the stage was embrace for a warm, passionate kiss and proceeded to melt each and every person in the audience down into a warm puddle of sunshine. Each song packed a metric boatload of gay dancey indie pop energy in the vein of My Bloody Valentine meets Dinosaur Jr. I know that mashup comparison may seem scary or mindless at first but I promise you I’m not crazy. Everything from the distortion to the drum machine cymbal crashes made me feel like I was listening to Dinosaur Jr.’s but the state of utter floating euphoria Man On Man had me in felt like I was in shoegaze heaven; the vocals were even low enough in the mix to sound like a J Mascis or a Kevin Shields.
They talked to the audience plenty and were always hilarious, sweet, and touching. They’d somehow seamlessly transitioned from talking about receiving nude pictures on Grindr to their thoughts on the best gay spa in Chicago to how they moved from New York to California during the pandemic to take care of Roddy Bottum’s cancer-stricken mother and were left with no other option than to make music together just to get through the almost constant darkness. Their music covers the full span of human emotions but they are never not fun even if the subject matter gets heavy. They were so much fun live and I can’t wait to start including them in all my standard playlists and am eagerly awaiting the next time I get a chance to see them.
What can even be said about The The Breeders performance last Monday night? For the first time in the history of the universe, The Breeders played Pod and Last Splash back-to-back and it was as glorious as that one song off Pod. Their first album, Pod, released in 1990, is one of the all-time great debut records and I don’t think anyone would dare disagree with me on that; not even Kurt Cobain. The record stands as this audacious landmark in indie rock trademarked completely by a sound few other bands could have possibly pulled off back then. Any time I listen to a Breeders song, even if it’s one I’m not that familiar with, I immediately know it’s them because no band sounds like The Breeders today and no band sounded exactly like The Breeders back in 1990 when they first came on the scene. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, though, is when the band releases their 1993 follow-up, Last Splash. Granted, I wasn’t around in 1990 to know if any song off Pod was a radio hit but Last Splash brought those radio hits and more. “Cannonball” ruled the airwaves and songs like “No Aloha”, “Divine Hammer”, and “Drivin’ on 9” showed a band at an unprecedented level of songwriting and performance. They somehow managed to take their trademark dark, chaotic, and peculiar indie sounds from Pod and touch them up with delightful pop sensibilities without watering down their sound in the slightest; if anything, The Breeders experimented even more on Last Splash than they did on Pod, they were just able to sprinkle in those undeniable indie rock classics along the way, too. All is to say, I felt very lucky to witness the first live playthrough of these two landmark albums together for the first time; there was a magic in the air and everyone, including the band, was feeling it, without a doubt.
It’s kinda tough to review this performance because I want to mention every single song played but if I did, we’d be here all night. But in all honesty, every single song off each album sounded so damn good and this is coming from someone who doesn’t even love every song on each of those albums. Hitting the Pod highlights, “Glorious” and “Doe” sounded absolutely massive live. Shows at The Salt Shed always sound great to me but there was something about The Breeders’ show that was next level in terms of sound quality. The drumming could be felt in your bones, the guitars sounded so loud, fuzzy, and warm, the bass had that signature Breeders sound to it, and Kim and Kelley Deal did not sound a day over 30. I’m not that big on their cover of “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” by The Beatles but much to my surprise, it sounded phenomenal live with Kelley on vocals singing those iconic Liverpool lines. “Oh!” brought an extremely talented violinist to the stage whose playing beautifully complimented the band’s performance of the song.
With “Hellbound” being my favorite song off Pod, its performance unsurprisingly sounded larger-than-life with heart-pounding drumming that quite literally had you mistaking your own heartbeat for the kick drum. Hearing the violinist do those slides in “When I Was A Painter” was an utter delight and Kim’s vocal prowess was on full display sounding almost weirdly better than other songs for some reason. “Fortunately Gone” is another favorite of mine off Pod and although it sounded as wonderful as you’d expect, “Iris” blew it out of the water with its dominating presence and overall intensity in the latter half of the song. “Lime House” was and still is my least favorite from Pod but hearing it live gave me a whole new appreciation for the song in ways that listening to it on record could never which is really the most underrated gift of live music; to listen to a song dozens of times and develop what you believe to be your final opinion on it only to have that blown away live is just such a special experience that I can only hope most people experience in their lifetimes with songs they’re halfway on the fence with.
Longtime bassist Josephine Wiggs brought the album performance to a close by singing “Metal Man”, a fact that I did not know or picked up on from all the times I’ve listened to the album. During their performance of “Metal Man”, the band had a projection of cherished friend and longtime collaborator Steve Albini declaring him the true “Metal Man”. Steve passed earlier this year and both Kim and Kelley honored his memory and their friendship with him by wearing Steve Albini shirts throughout the whole night but the projection during “Metal Man” was really the cherry on top of a very touching tribute to a legendary producer, musician, friend, and Chicago local.
There was a short intermission between albums which felt needed; after all, you wouldn’t be able to just immediately play Last Splash after listening to Pod on a record player so why would you in a live setting? “New Year”, similar to “Glorious”, makes for a triumphant album opener and it sounded ferocious live, especially with the last thirty or so seconds of the song going wild with aggressive power chords and heavily accented cymbal crashes joining together in the ultimate union. While getting ready for “Cannonball”, Kelley Deal remarked how each song on Last Splash is basically its own microcosm with how they were recorded so showing a little understanding of the time required to transition between songs would be appreciated. To no one’s surprise, “Cannonball” sounded pitch-perfect in every way but what surprised me most was how unbelievably similar the live drums and bass sounded to the studio recording. I closed my eyes multiple times and could not parse out the differences in my head; the band and production team were just firing on all cylinders that night!
“No Aloha” was always a song I never fully understood from a popularity standpoint until I heard it live. The intro always threw me when listening to the album and for no real reason at all; it’s pretty and sounds exactly like what the band was going for in terms of inspiration but I guess I’m just not that into surfer influences in my indie rock? Anywho, I was enjoying myself when they started playing the song but when the drums and distorted guitar finally kicked in, the biggest of lightbulbs went off in my head and it all finally made sense to me; it’s just a song that puts a smile on your face with how unique yet nostalgic it is and the energy is multiplied ten times over live as you can imagine.
I’m usually one to skip “Roi” when listening to the album casually since it’s basically an instrumental in my book and I’m not huge into those but leave it to The Breeders to flip that switch on me because “Roi” felt like a true musical experience live like I was watching a band really work for the money of every single audience member that night. I somehow doubt The Breeders make it a point to perform all their instrumentals live every show so it felt special to hear an unsung hero like “Roi” live and it made for a wonderful transition into one of my favorite Breeders songs, “Do You Love Me Now?”. This song is simply one of my favorite songs period with its slowed-down grooves, iconic lyricism, and powerful guitars — it’s just impossible not to love the song and see it as a true musical gem.
“I Just Wanna Get Along” was one song I was quite late to the game on as I never really cared for it before seeing it live but man, on man, did it hit live. Hearing Kelley sing is always a treat and hearing that the only reason she sings that song is because their mom made Kim promise to give her little sister a song to sing on the record was just the wholesome introduction I needed for it. The song is short, it’s sweet, it knows exactly what kind of song it is, it executes that perfectly, and is now one of my favorites off the album.
Getting into my favorite two-song run of the night, “Mad Lucas” into “Divine Hammer” was truly something magical. I’ve always loved “Mad Lucas” for just how soft and weird it sounds but never noticed how brilliantly it transitions into “Divine Hammer” until hearing it live. I’ve said that so many times this review but it’s true, these two albums live are just full of surprises that you just can’t predict from listening to them on record. As soon as the dust settled delicately on “Mad Lucas”, the band immediately transitioned into the opening quaint guitar notes of “Divine Hammer” and before I knew what hit me, the drums grabbed a sack of doorknobs and thrashed me across the face a few times before doing it a few more times per my request. For the entirety of “Divine Hammer”, I had the best feeling in my heart and in my bones and it was such an entrancing, divine experience to behold; it genuinely made me feel lucky and that’s kinda rare these days at concerts.
I’m feeling like I’m just rambling and going on and on here so to wrap up the Last Splash play through I’ll just say that “S.O.S.” is one of the greatest indie rock instrumentals of all time, “Saints” is the most underrated song across both albums, and “Drivin’ on 9” is just happiness personified but in song form; I know it’s not a Breeders original but they made it their own and ending the record with the most country-inspired song they’ve ever recorded was definitely a move I respected.
Although “Drivin’ on 9” is the last non-instrumental song on the record, the band wasn’t ready to call it quits until “Roi (reprise)” had its time to shine. The reprise is less than a minute long and it sure did feel like it but it was comical hearing them end “Drivin’ on 9” and feeling like the night was over only for them to say “Wait! Don’t leave yet! We still got a little bit left!” Turns out, they even had one left in them after “Roi (reprise)” as they came back out for an encore after a brief wait, and to my utter shock and disbelief, they actually played a cover of the Pixies 1988 classic “Gigantic”. The song is off the much beloved Surfa Rosa which was also produced by Steve Albini and as an interesting fact I did not know prior to Kim Deal telling the audience last Monday night, “Gigantic” was the very first time Steve recorded Kim doing anything and you could tell just how much that song meant to her. Looking back through their setlists over the years, the band does seem to cover “Gigantic” quite a bit so I guess it wasn’t as special as I thought it was at that moment, but ending their fantastical night in Chicago with their musical introductory handshake to Steven Albini felt rather fitting.
I really didn’t think The Breeders were going to go that hard live but I’m so happy to be proved wrong. They brought it harder and faster than most bands half their age and to hear two of the most landmark, influential, and all-around important albums of the 90s indie rock landscape live is something I will not soon forget!
All photos by Lorenzo Zentisky