The final nights of Lincoln Calling had it all: a tastefully evolving billing at The Bourbon, hard rock outfits at Zoo Bar and a memorably raucous final performance from Desert Noises. Read on for photos and stray notebook thoughts from Saturday and Sunday at Lincoln Calling.
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Bourbon Theatre
Sleep Sinatra
The Undisco Kids
Motion Trap
The Bourbon might have had the most tastefully curated set of the evening. Its evolution flowed naturally and effortlessly from hip-hop to jam funk to indie soundscape. Motion Trap has built a nice Lincoln following over years of touring through and playing local festivals, and the front room was filled thusly by the drums cascaded through echoing guitars to start the set. Theatrics abounded, though with Motion Trap, it was more about well-lit moments of haunting emotion than the grand instrumentation of Undisco Kids before them. Both lent themselves to audience members losing their heads, but with Motion Trap it was always a morphing bassline or a globbing echo or a dangling flange that kept the landscape shifting. Add the lightshow and the stringing melodies that held everything together, and it made for a mesmerizing return.
— Andrew Stellmon
AZP
photos by Peter Barnes
Bodega’s Alley
A Ferocious Jungle Cat
Pure Brown
Knickerbockers
This Machine Kills Vibes
Westside Proletariat
photos by Will Stott
Single Barrel
Lazerwolfe
photos by Will Stott
Zoo Bar
Ghost Foot
When looking into the open Zoo Bar door, one might see a guitar player and drummer duo and assume some static version of The White Stripes or The Black Keys. Ghost Foot is not to be mistaken for or compared to either. Hailing from Shreveport, Louisiana, Jacob Disedare and Dacoda Montana’s wholly unique brand of blood and guts garage rock was tooth-achingly loud and Wall of Sound full. Disedare played with a dual-amped Fender Telecaster Deluxe–one amp to bring out it’s scritchy, scratchy highs and a separate amp to bring out the bass lines and shrilled through his Green Bullet. This made the lyrics indecipherable, but added another earth-quaking layer to the noise. Montana had a light and purposeful touch, choosing to let the guitar take the transitions and beating back in at the right moment. Anyone wearing earplugs missed out.
— Rebecca Lowry
Cupcake
Cupcake is a four-piece band from St. Joseph, Missouri that would thrill anyone sticking around for Universe Contest. In fact, Cupcake opened for them at Vega for the 2014 We Are The Rattlesnake CD release to a warm reception. So aside from the small, waning group of superfans up front, the wisp of a crowd gathered at The Zoo Bar was mind-boggling.
Described as part Modest Mouse, part Pixies, part demon possession, it could be understood that Cupcake might confuse the hell out of the humorless crowd. Frontman Marc Darnell has a delivery comparable only to a bird mid-mating call: strutting side-to-side, bowlegged, craning and contorting his neck, and baring his teeth. It’s understandable that a crowd so unfamiliar might be uncomfortable watching someone with Darnell’s Homer Simpson good looks make a point to draw attention to the lack of buttons on his shirt, only to reveal more skin. It’s plausible that the crowd caught on to the fact that about the third song in, Darnell opted out of playing his out-of-tune guitar entirely, but still stroked mid-air, merely mimicking out of muscle memory.
— Rebecca Lowry
Universe Contest
photos by Lindsey Yoneda
Duffy’s Tavern
Jay Kutchma
photos by Lindsey Yoneda
The Heather Berney Band
It’s been years since Heather Barney fronted The Betties. Years since the wide-eyed, crinoline-wearing, beer-guzzling, pixie-haired songbird brought the Lincoln music community together to sing sweet, sad, longing choruses in one voice. Years to long for more of those bittersweet moments to be met with a solo, wizened and wry ghost. No doubt her voice is the voice that broke a thousand hearts. Anyone with ears could hear it. No doubt she continues to write those sweet, sad, longing choruses. The new songs were as lonely as her songs of yore. However, Barney’s years away from Lincoln left her alone in front of an entirely new audience, who were in turn the wide-eyed beer-guzzlers, whispering in awe.
— Rebecca Lowry
blét
Like a character in one of its songs, blét’s lead guitar lines are often the faint light in a gale, a small lifeboat among the black waves, like one’s hope surviving against stacked odds. It’s the lone light, if you must. Warmly glowing by the array of Christmas lights and stage shading, the three-piece injected a noticeable jump in freneticism and energy Saturday, cresting and crashing through big transitions and extended intros. Maybe it’s the result of spurting through regional, outside-of-Nebraska shows, but the band was as sharp as ever.
— Andrew Stellmon
Mike Semrad
The Allendales
photos by James Dean
Desert Noises
Closing time was drawing near, and Desert Noises had received the high sign: it was time for the end.
This concert would be the rousing, rambunctious final act for one of Lincoln’s honorary out-of-state scene members. Desert Noises was just by in July, capping a relaxed Folk & Roots Festival at Branched Oak Farms. But the energy here was tangibly different, augmented by the confluence of band-specific fans planted stagefront and festivalgoers streaming in from other shows. It was a bouncy, full-throttle set, brimming with positive energy. Fans bounced about and careened into each other and belted along with frontman Kyle Henderson. The band facilitated a guest appearance by Freakabout guitarist Aaron Galvan, adding a hard-rock flavor to “Shiver.”
But the added fervor came to a head just before the last song, as the Provo, Utah, band tried to squeeze every last drop out of its 75-minute set. The last 15 came after the bell, mics cut and house lights up. Fighting the ending, they closed in disarray, a spirited attempt to deliver the final, uproarious note. By the time they were finally driven from stage, for Henderson, it was on the hands of its fans. It definitely wasn’t tidy, but it sure was explosive.
— Andrew Stellmon
photo by Lindsey Yoneda
photos by Nickolai Hammar
Sunday – Duffy’s Tavern
Omni Arms
Glo Worm
State Disco
Powerful Science
photos by James Dean