[ATTENDED: November 26, 2016] Dinosaur Jr.
I’ve seen Ryley Walker twice before this (and one time when he played lead guitar for Nap Eyes). Every time I’ve seen him, it’s been a totally different experience.
The first time, back in 2018 (when Walker had long hair and a beard), he was on stage with Bill MacKay. They jammed a bunch of songs and Walker was really funny.
Most of the songs were instrumental, but one, “Telluride Speed” was a fairly conventional song and super catchy.
I saw him again at the end of 2019 as part of a post Phish concert in NYC. He looked totally different, with short hair, no beard and a winter hat.
He had a four piece, with Ryan Jewell on drums. It was mostly lengthy guitar solos and lots of improv. Walker has some wild noisy guitar skills and I was right up there watching him.
For this show, it was again a four piece. Ryan Jewell was on drums again (he’s the main reason I wanted to go) and Bill McKay was on co-lead guitar. I’m not sure who was on bass.
When I got there the show had started already. It wasn’t super crowded yet, but I couldn’t get all the close. At least not in the spot I like to be in there in that club. After a song, I decided to move in front of Walker (he and his band were all squeezed into the right side of the stage). So I went over there and stood right under Walker (a little behind him, which was a drag) and Jewel.
McKay and the bassist were more in the middle of the stage and it almost felt like Ryley was tossing the sound over to them, to take over.
They were playing folkie songs with lengthy jams. After I got to my spot, they played a more mellow song, Ryley said, “shit I didn’t know they were just gonna play mellow shit, I’m gonna go take a piss.” There was some more literal toilet humor before Walker said, it was time to rock and he kicked the song up a notch and they rocked out.
I loved watching Jewel play everything in his kit, including bells and other percussive things as well as making all kind of sounds on the cymbals.
At some point someone said that someone on the stage looked like Sufjan Stevens. Ryley heard part of it and said I am Sufjan Stevens, yes. The only different is that I’m much richer than him.
Walker’s last album was very well received and will make a few best of the year lists come December.
Here’s a paragraph from an interview in The Guardian
Given how much Walker has had to give up over the last few years – emerging from the drug and alcohol dependency that shaped his adult life [by 2018, he was addicted to heroin, cocaine and alcohol]– it’s hard to begrudge him one last remaining vice. Walker, who attempted suicide as a consequence of his addictions, says that being here today is “a miracle”. His career-best new album – the proggy, unexpectedly pretty Course in Fable – is the sound of an artist treating his life as such.
Clearly the first time I saw him, he was in the middle of something bad. But he is better now, apparently. He’s playing a headline tour this spring and I’m very curious what he’d do when he has the main stage to his own design.
I don’t have a set list from my show, but this is from the night before and I assume it’s similar if not the same.
- Striking Down Your Big Premiere ©
- Shiva With Dustpan ©
- Opposite Middle ø
- Telluride Speed ø
- The Halfwit in Me §
© Course in Fable (2021)
ø Deafman Glance ()
§ Golden Sings That Have Been Sung ()
Leave a Reply