photo by Chris Dinan
reviews by Chance Solem-Pfeifer, Jacob Zlomke and Michael Todd
photos by Bridget McQuillan, Cara Wilwerding, Chloe Ekberg, Chris Dinan, Ingrid Holmquist and Shannon Claire
No longer do we see 200 empty folding chairs.
That's how Oquoa's Max Holmquist remembers his first Lincoln Calling appearance, performing with a "shitty numetal band" on UNL's East Campus some seven or so years ago. As the festival celebrates 10 years this week, it only vaguely resembles those humble beginnings: Basically, both the past and the present festivals have called Lincoln home.
Tsumi's Heather Sticka posited that Lincoln Calling has helped to bring the downtown venues together, and while Matt Whipkey's memory is less festival-based — that someone threw a brick through Duffy's Tavern the first time he played it on July 3, 2001 — it stands that no windows were shattered during the course of Thursday night's dozens of performances at The Bourbon, the Zoo Bar, Duffy's, Yia Yia's and Mix Bar and Arcade.
Only hearts and eardrums were shattered, respectively pieced together and still ringing this morning. Relive or see anew photos from the night, and read our reviews below:
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Orion Walsh at Duffy's Tavern
Freakabout! at Duffy's Tavern
The Kickback at Duffy's Tavern
Desert Noises at Duffy's Tavern
The Bottle Tops at the Zoo Bar
Jack Hotel at the Zoo Bar
Tsumi at the Zoo Bar
Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies at the Zoo Bar
Christopher the Conquered at the Zoo Bar
John Klemmensen at the Zoo Bar
The Renfields at the Zoo Bar
Haggard Mess at The Bourbon
Gallows Majesty at The Bourbon
Ezra at The Bourbon
Huntress at The Bourbon
Skypiper at The Bourbon
The Kickback at The Bourbon
Rock Paper Dynamite at The Bourbon
Desert Noises at The Bourbon
Oquoa at Duffy's Tavern
Tie These Hands at Duffy's Tavern
The Whipkey Three at Duffy's Tavern
Masses at Duffy's Tavern
Orion Walsh at Duffy's Tavern
photo by Cara Wilwerding
Freakabout! at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Cara Wilwerding
The Kickback at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Cara Wilwerding
Desert Noises at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Cara Wilwerding
The Bottle Tops at the Zoo Bar
photo by Shannon Claire
review by Jacob Zlomke
There is something very comforting about a Bottle Tops live show. It’s the familiarity of stage setup: two guitars, a stand-up bass, a violist, a drummer, the man-and-woman split vocal duties. It’s a formula so classic and without-variation that its genre is easily recognizable. This all points to one thing: a bouncing kind of country-western tailor-made for storytelling.
At Zoo Bar on Thursday night, it’s stories they told. From standard country music fare of going to Nashville to pursue music to the more distinct subject matter of local lore in a song about Whiteclay, the Bottle Tops pursued their deeply western sound. At times, their music sounds ripe for tales of adventure, optimistic and strong, and at others, there is a prevailing sense of bleak doom, the kind that comes from knowing no one makes it out alive.
Vocalist Kerry Semrad’s voice, all drenched in syrupy-cheer, lend the tracks some memorability beyond that of a ‘50s country-inspired band, but not much. From the moment they take the stage, the Bottle Tops set expectations — that the bass guitar will play alternating quarter notes, that Nashville will be mentioned at least once, that vocal harmonies will be employed to sing classic country topics — and those expectations are met, not exceeded.
It’s music that Zoo Bar was made to host, a dark, storied bar and a crowded stage, patrons drinking whiskey-waters, all lament and nostalgia, or so you hope. It’s a familiar scene, of course. One from a movie, or maybe what you imagined when you heard your first Johnny Cash song.
Jack Hotel at the Zoo Bar
photo by Cara Wilwerding
review by Jacob Zlomke
Jack Hotel heats up slowly, letting off steam little by little. The arid, high-plains country music simmers almost to the point of boiling, then relaxes. It stews on the edge, riding the anxious energy of viola and finger-picked guitar on songs like “Sideways Lightning Blues,” and then deconstructs before ever reaching that raucous boil.
It makes for compelling musical structure, to give audiences two or three bars of a classic country bassline, then falling apart again into its individual components.
Lincoln is not a small town, but Jack Hotel is no stranger to small-town problems. These are the songs of towns with two bars and too few people, the dusty odes to all those nights when you “go out to the bar and it’s the same damn thing.”
At Zoo Bar, all this simmering frustration does eventually build to something stomping and danceable in the last half of the band’s set. It seems odd, to begin dancing after 20 minutes of being pummeled by Jack Hotel’s sorrows, like how could you could you do something so joyous, so active, after the band just tried to make you sad?
Maybe Jack Hotel is really doing a favor by allowing that opportunity to get your mind off of the fact that you just realized that you, too, live in a two-bar town, even though you thought you didn’t.
You’d better dance, otherwise you’ll be alone with your thoughts, a prospect not so comforting by the time Jack Hotel is done.
photos by Cara Wilwerding
Tsumi at the Zoo Bar
photos by Cara Wilwerding
Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies at the Zoo Bar
photo by Shannon Claire
review by Michael Todd
Brad Hoshaw said he sometimes just lets guitarist Matt Whipkey go, until he falls off the stage.
Well, off the stage, barging into concertgoers, spastically balancing on the Zoo Bar’s stage steps and on his knees Whipkey went, testament to the marked difference between a Brad Hoshaw solo show and one with his Seven Deadlies. Sure, his comfortable stare still travels out the front door and presumably settles on a Great Lake thousands of miles away.
And yes, the band is the Seven Deadlies, but only four stood on stage with frontman and songwriter Hoshaw. “You’re not reverse drunk,” Hoshaw said. “You’re not seeing only half of us on stage. There’s a reason why we’re musicians and not mathematicians,” the “we” being he and guitarist Whipkey, whose Whipkey Three comprises four players. That said, Whipkey noted the band might start writing in 3/4 time to cut a few minutes off the set list, one beat at a time.
As Hoshaw raises money for the production of his next album via Kickstarter, you would hardly know it at a live show. Two passing mentions proved Hoshaw’s humble personality, though this Nebraskan gem of a musician has little reason to be humble. With the two solo songs in the middle of a sometimes honky-tonk, sometimes hard rock full-band set, Hoshaw made up for the space with the first snarling acoustic guitar in new song “Would You Believe” then the classically beautiful, summertime narrative of “Blue Bicycle.”
Christopher the Conquered at the Zoo Bar
photos by Shannon Claire
review by Jacob Zlomke
Christopher the Conquered has driven all the way from Des Moines to deliver a sermon. The band is fortunate enough to have a vehicle and gas money, but there is the impression that vocalist Christopher Ford would have walked if it meant being able to stand atop his piano on the Zoo Bar stage to remind the audience just how well-off they all are.
It’s a sort of progressive piano jazz that seems equal parts rehearsed and improvisation, an idea planted and grown in Christopher the Conquered’s first 10 minutes when Ford ditched the confines of the stage in order to walk through the Zoo Bar’s crowd, projecting his impressive voice over the noise of his band, to the old house piano near the bar’s door, where he finished their song. He returned to the piano for the band’s final song, as well, where he improvised a vocal duet with one audience member.
He takes off his shoes and plays his piano with his feet. He throws his hat across the stage in fits of passion, only to replace it after the song. He stands on the piano bench to get better leverage on the keys, to hit them harder, better. Whatever it takes to drive his point home. Whatever it takes to make you understand that “every book you read is one fewer you’ll burn.”
“I really try hard not to waste your time,” he tells the audience. Time is precious, we’re running out of it, and Christopher has so much to say about Truth and Rules of the Game. He’s not playing music for its own sake, rather music is the easiest way for Ford to deliver such sermons.
Christopher the Conquered has lessons to share and he’s so passionate that you’ll take something away from it that you actually do.
John Klemmensen and the Party at the Zoo Bar
photo by Shannon Claire
review by Jacob Zlomke
John Klemmensen will use his own broken heart to mend others.
Through short, psychedelic rock songs, he tells tales of despondency, disenfranchisement and confusion, and he does so with such comforting earnestness that it’s easy to feel a little less alone.
His backing band is named the Party. And it is a party, but it’s your 1,000th party in as many nights, long after you’ve realized that these people aren’t your friends, that you’ve been too drunk for too long, and you just want to go home.
As Klemmensen sings on “Party All Night,” a decidedly not-party anthem, “Why am I standing here, holding this warm beer?”
You’ll begin to question your decisions at John Klemmensen’s party and feel a little sorry for most of them.
But not at first. Klemmensen lures the audience into his self-reflective get-together with catchy hooks that sound just like a good time. And you buy it. You drink what he’s serving and then you start to notice the sour taste of loneliness, the bitterness of disconnect. The music is still there, that same thing that first brought you in. It’s no longer good party rock, but now the twisted sounds of a melancholy heart whose only language is the party.
And that’s just Klemmensen’s entry point. Once he crumbles expectations, he’s able to reach out to something deeper through compact elegies on broken hearts and relationships. He’ll make you realize you’ve been alone at this party all along, only to extend the handshake of a new friend.
The Renfields at the Zoo Bar
photos by Shannon Claire
Haggard Mess at The Bourbon
photos by Chloe Ekberg
Gallows Majesty at The Bourbon
photos by Chloe Ekberg
Ezra at The Bourbon
photo by Chris Dinan
photos by Chloe Ekberg
Huntress at The Bourbon
photos by Bridget McQuillan
photos by Chris Dinan
photos by Chloe Ekberg
Skypiper at The Bourbon
photo by Bridget McQuillan
review by Chance Solem-Pfeifer
Four hours after squeezing seven instruments and four voices into the KZUM studios for an appearance on Hear Nebraska FM, Skypiper could breathe.
On the main stage of The Bourbon, the Omaha folk pop band was allowed the space to stretch itself out, revealing that while they enjoy and embrace a newfound power pop sound, there’s nothing overly simple about the arrangements and instrumentation when they fill a big room. The large theater stage shredded and dissected Skypiper’s genre considerations as well. When the treble of the songs were slower to reach the ears after trips from floor to high ceiling, the lows of the Skypiper songs (Ryan Menchaca on drums and Gabriel Burkum on upright bass and Conner Giles on cello) come through strong. What shows through is that despite the new joyful and hyper-melodic vibe of their most recent EP Troubledoer, at its backbone the band might not be as far from its folk beginnings as the keyboards and harmonies might suggest.
The glue of the band’s performance at The Bourbon was cinematic to observe. Menchaca drummed with suspenseful dynamics. Staged, several feet behind the other players, he would start a long fill with the crowd having no idea how loud or soft he might roll to, either instigating a raucous all-band sing-along or releasing singer Graham Burkum into a gentle verse or bridge.
And to flop the obvious, but important “twin card” on the table, when you step back to look at the inner-workings of a band that (as of yet) doesn’t typically play theater rooms under the dusky yellow lights, there was a filmic symmetry to seeing brothers Graham and Gabriel sway, headbang and bumrush their vocal mics with all the same mirror image mannerisms. More unspoken glue for a band with a core now sturdy enough to support all the power pop bells and whistles.
photos by Bridget McQuillan
photo by Chris Dinan
photo by Cara Wilwerding
The Kickback at The Bourbon
photo by Bridget McQuillan
review by Chance Solem-Pfeifer
The Kickback has time to bide as they search for a label to release their debut full-length Sorry All Over The Place. And in that time, the stage appears to be both a refuge and a laboratory for the Chicago-based rock band.
In the early evening on Thursday at Duffy's Tavern, The Kickback performed a set of new material, b-sides and a slow-jam version of “Sting’s Teacher Years.” But at the Bourbon that night it was more of an album preview, including crowd favorites and Love Drunk featurees “Little Teach” and “Sting’s Teacher Years.” If those two- and three-year-old songs are for the fans, newer tracks like “White Lodge” which singer Billy Yost said is about “Twin Peaks” (one of the nine most important things to him in the world) seemed to technically stimulate the band with its many different musical movements and acts.
But before the crooning-turned-screaming, Jonathan Egan (Vermillion, S.D., hometown friend of the band's brothers Billy and Danny Yost) introduced the songs of love, death and lives wracked with them. He proclaimed triumphantly that when Lincoln is Calling, “The Kickback always answers.” And then for good measure, another line about how this music is for when every girl you’ve ever loved is wearing a sweater that was purchased for her by another man. Innocuous, but painful.
On special request, The Kickback closed their set with “Rob Our House” — a unique brand of Kickback jazz requested by Lincoln Calling organizer and founder Jeremy Buckley. It’s a song for which each performance Billy improvises lyrics about a time he and his brother’s south side Chicago house was burglarized. While “Rob Our House” is a cut-loose number for the band, on Thursday it came off as a bit of a burden for Billy who replaced an entire verse of the song with a little nervous poetry about how much he hates playing it. The then-despondent singer then broke a guitar string during the final push of the song and threw his instrument in the air. He was still spirited enough to catch it though.
The Kickback has been a staple of visiting Lincoln bands the last three years and for a nearly full standing room area at The Bourbon, they brought all their anxious gusto.
photos by Bridget McQuillan
photos by Chris Dinan
Rock Paper Dynamite at The Bourbon
photos by Bridget McQuillan
photos by Chris Dinan
Oquoa at Duffy's Tavern
photo by Chris Dinan
review by Michael Todd
Max Holmquist might sing that he’s only just a child now, roaringly composed in his suggestion that he’s “maybe just afraid of you,” but Oquoa — just a few shows into its existence — is a matured progression from Holmquist’s solo project, The Great American Desert.
Yes, the Nebraska music menagerie is reminiscent of its band members’ previous work. Guitarist J.J. Idt and drummer Roger Lewis fold the repeating, building and atmosphere-of-Neptune sound of Conduits, most evident on the song “Mountain.”
As Holmquist delays the active verbs of the resolution before an instrumental section, singing in gerunds and infinitives, his inflection and vowel sounds take a rounder sound. But on set-closer “Yellow Flags,” he still employed the sort of across-the-pond accent that populated The Great American Desert.
Apart from from a few more active bass parts, UUVVWWZ’s Jim Schroeder proved both his musical merit and the easier-to-learn looping chord structures when Holmquist announced their new bassist had first practiced these songs on Wednesday, the day before. What keeps it interesting, though, are the less-common changes, like how “Cigarette” moves from D to F before settling on an E minor. That second unconventionally major chord, at least as far as I could tell, tells our ears to wait for more.
Let’s wait to see how Oquoa continues to strengthen its sound.
photos by Ingrid Holmquist
Tie These Hands at Duffy's Tavern
photo by Bridget McQuillan
review by Chance Solem-Pfeifer
Tie These Hands has a way of letting their choral refrains do most of the heavy lifting.
During the Lincoln band’s performance of “Pro Choice” from their most recent album Come On, brothers Aram and Naum Stauffer chant in their high throat voices: “I choose, I choose, I choose for something new.”
As they repeat the words, each time they are superficially same, trickling down over the impermeable mass of two strummed guitars and a bass and drums all played with identical fullness. But that refrain — and many of the quartet’s new and pensive songs — mature and twist like something out of Ben Gibbard’s daydreams, until the song is no longer just chasing newness, but reacting to itself. As if new meaning and new songs might simply rise out of these four minutes on the Duffy’s Tavern stage.
Across tracks from Come On “about breaking up and stuff” or “being with someone and being in love” Tie These Hands songs work musically and lyrically in wholes and absolutes. The struggles were not within the songs where Aram and Naum’s voices and guitars all head one direction and stay with it: as they do on burdensomely-themed “Atlas” or the soon-to-be-released “Trampoline.” Their artistic struggle is with giant ideas and the interest in seeing an even-headed, modest and four-cornered quartet try and wrestle them.
photos by Cara Wilwerding
The Whipkey Three at Duffy's Tavern
photo by Cara Wilwerding
Masses at Duffy's Tavern
photos by Cara Wilwerding
Bridget McQuillan, Cara Wilwerding, Chris Dinan and Shannon Claire are Hear Nebraska contributors, Chance Solem-Pfeifer is HN's staff writer, Chloe Ekberg is an HN multimedia intern, and Michael Todd is HN's managing editor. Reach them all through Michael at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.