A bill featuring The Afghan Whigs and Built to Spill would leave any connoisseur of mid-90s indie salivating. And that was exactly the type of people that filled the majority of the audience gathered at The Wiltern in Los Angeles’ Koreatown neighborhood to witness these two titans of alternative rock. Lots of folks looked like they had finally found a sitter and managed to catch two of the most influential bands of the indie rock/college rock era, enjoying some classics as well as a lot of new material.
The tour is a co-headlining one and it appears the bands switch off headliners. On this night, The Afghan Whigs were up first, packing the stage with (at times) three guitarists, a keyboardist, a drummer and a bassist. The result was a rich, full sound that provided a little-added aggression to the band’s guitar-driven sound. Unfortunately, there were times it was difficult to hear discern what Greg Dulli was singing, though in truth it really didn’t matter. The passion and grit of the performance won out this night, an incredible feat for a band that is going on their fourth decade in existence.
Dulli and company fired up the set with one of the standouts from their excellent eight album In Spades, “Arabian Heights.” They followed up later with another cut from that album, one of its best, “Oriole.” that song made our top 50 best albums of 2017 list, and it did not disappoint in live form, with the moving strings section well-replicated and the churning guitar strums building momentum towards its final emotive pay-off. There are some benefits to having six players on stage and being able to (seemingly) effortlessly pull it off with aplomb is one.
The Afghan Whigs added a couple of covers into their set for good measure. First, they covered a David Gilmour song “There’s No Way Out of Here,” something they have been known to do in the past. They then followed that cover with a performance of a song they cover even more frequently, the Jesus Christ Superstar song “Heaven on Their Minds.” Of course, the band ditched the hippie aesthetic of the original, laying on their thick, grooving guitar tones. Another cover was found later on in the set, “The Killer” by The Twilight Sisters. Finally, after playing the last song on their most recent album, they closed out their set by stretching out the iconic guitar riff of Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer,” making it barely recognizable and altogether their own composition.
Built to Spill offers listeners a slightly less aggressive sound, but one that could easily require six or more musicians on stage to fully replicate. Instead, guitarist and singer Doug Martsch was only joined by bass and drum accompaniment, the minimalism a stark contrast to the “everything goes” feeling of The Afghan Whigs earlier set. The band dove right into a classic, playing “Goin’ Against Your Mind” and stretching that sucker out a full 10 minutes, with jam-band style interludes and plenty of pedal manipulating. It was amazing and everything a Built to Spill show can be. Next up was “The Plan,” the opening track from their landmark release Keep It Like a Secret. This song too was beefed up well beyond its recorded run time of three and a half minutes. Completing the trifecta was an early era favorite, “In The Morning.”
Martsch then dialed the time machine even further back, culling songs from their first LP Ultimate Alternative Wavers but sandwiching one of their newest songs, “C.R.E.B.” from Untethered Moon. Not to be outdone by the night’s openers, Built to Spill offered up their own cover, this one of the Pretenders classic “Back on the Chain Gang.” They didn’t fiddle with the original much and it was a bit stunning to realize that Martsch and Chrissy Hynde have very similar registers. The band appeased fans with a couple more favorites from their classic albums, including “Reasons,” “I would Hurt A Fly,” “Carry The Zero” and the encore, “Broken Chairs.”
The Afghan Whigs Set List
“Arabian Heights”
“Matamoros”
“Debonair”
“Light as a Feather”
“Oriole”
“Toy Automatic”
“There’s No Way Out of Here” – (David Gilmour cover)
“Heaven on Their Minds” – (Andrew Lloyd Webber cover)
“Somethin’ Hot”
“The Lottery”
“Going to Town (slight return)”
“Demon In Profile”
“The Killer” – (The Twilight Singers cover)
“John the Baptist”
“My Enemy”
“Son of the South” / “Roadhouse Blues (snippet)”
“Into the Floor” / “Boys of Summer” – (Don Henley Cover)
Built to Spill Set List
“Goin’ Against Your Mind”
“The Plan”
“In the Morning”
“Strange”
“C.R.E.B.”
“Back on the Chain Gang” – (The Pretenders cover)
“Stab”
“Three Years Ago Today”
“Reasons”
“I Would Hurt a Fly”
“On the Way”
“Carry the Zero”
File Photo: Sharon Alagna
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