[ATTENDED: April 1, 2022] Car Seat Headrest
I saw Car Seat Headrest four years ago at Union Transfer and it was one of the least pleasant shows I’d been to. The music was great, but the crowd was uniformly terrible–especially near me.
I wasn’t sure if I’d want to see them again, but then my son got really turned on to them (I had nothing to do with it) and he really wanted to see them live. I couldn’t pass that up, and I assumed the crowd would be a little different in this much bigger venue.
And, yes, the crowd was much better–although it felt really crowded in there!
The crazy thing is that the doors opens at 7:30. We arrived at 7:25 to an enormous line. And we didn’t get in the venue until after 8. I asked my son if he wanted to get up front or get merch. He chose merch–I think getting close will win out next time. I would have loved to have been closer for sure.
The fascinating thing about Car Seat Headrest now is that lead singer and main Headrest Will Toledo wears a modified gasmask for the entire set. It’s pretty neat as it has a microphone in it and the eyes light up to display emotions (cute eyes, angry eyes, heart and swirly lines). The good thing is that Toledo sounds fine through this odd system.
The band came out and he ambled out a few minutes later with his full outfit on–a kind of orange jumpsuit/sweatsuit that seems incredibly hot (he took it off after a few minutes and I really liked the dog howling shirt he had on).
I had been listening to the new CSH album a bunch, as I saw that he’d be playing a number of songs from it. But I didn’t recognize the first one (turns out it’s from an EP that I didn’t know about).
Then he started playing “Weightlifters” from the new album. He even did a pantomime of doing squats. The rest of his band, but the way was outstanding, as usual.
Ethan Ives is fierce on guitar and Andrew Katz provided a lot of backing (and one lead) vocal. Seth Dalby on bass was wearing a middle eastern desert wrap on his head complete with dark glasses–you couldn’t see him at all. There was a keyboardist at the front of the stage but I’m not sure who he was.
On the way down, I was talking with my son about the previous show and which songs they played. He said that there were a few of those that he hoped the band would play tonight. One of them was “Fill in the Blank” with the break and sing along “You have no right to be depressed”
After a quick run through the quiet “Hymns” (apparently they played the vinyl version of the song), they jumped to the first single I’d heard from this album “Hollywood.” I thought the vocals sounded different and it turns out that drummer Katz screams the main lead vocals for this song. It got the whole crowd moving.
As did “Bodys.” On the way down my son said he didn’t know why this song was so popular but after seeing it live, her understood–the band really rocks it out live. Plus the call and response parts are a lot of fun.
Then they played a request (he said there had been an online request form or something) and they played “Something Soon” which was a lot of fun–a bouncy song that I didn’t recognize, even though they played it last time i saw them too.
After that song, Katz came down from behind the kit and drew a picture during the opening of “Sober to Death.” The melody sounded so different to me that I didn’t recognize the song. But around half way through the picture I realized what it was and I knew that my son loved the song so that was pretty awesome.
Midway through the song, the drums kick in and Katz climbed back up to finish the song while the drawing was taken to the merch stand and sold (for $50, I believe). He started up just as the “don’t worry, you and me won’t be alone no more” started to build up.
Will was playing guitar for that song so he said he’d leave it on for “Destroyed By Hippie Powers” another favorite. I was pretty excited that they were playing a lot of the songs that my son wanted to hear.
They followed it with my favorite song “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” which is possibly everyone else’s favorite song as well given how much everyone sang along.
Will then introduced Ethan and said they’d play one of his songs. I didn’t realize that he had a band of his own called Toy Bastard. They played a ripping song called “It’s My Child (I’ll Do What I Like)” which made me want to check out more of that band’s songs.
They switched to the new album with my absolute favorite song on the album, “Can’t Cool Me Down.” I love the discoey vibe, but I really love the vocals–excellent backing vocals and Will’s voice sounds especially good on this one. They did an extended jam of the song and Bartees Strange came out to do a guitar solo, while Will sang the words to “Vincent.” This is the second time that he has teased “Vincent” but not played it (It’s a song I’d really like to hear).
Then he said his voice was starting to fail him (and you could hear it kind of was. So he was going to do one more song. But it was a long one. And he began the epic “Beach Life-in-Death.” Its like 13 minutes long with multiple parts and lots of call and response from the audience. Last time I didn’t really know the song but I liked it. This time I was ready for it and it was awesome. It’s another of my son’s favorites so it was a great way to end the set.
It sounded like he was done–his voice did sound kinda bad. And they started playing house music. A couple lights went on, but not all of them. A lot of people left the venue. But I told my son–you don’t leave until the lights come on.
I don’t know if Will meant to do an encore–he suggested that he didn’t, but who knows.
Earlier my son had joked that for April Fool’s Day, Car Seat Headrest was going to play a 90 minute version of “Stop Smoking,” a song that’s 90 seconds long. That would have been hilarious and terrible. But it was really fun that that’s the encore that they played. And they stretched it out with a little jam for a couple of minutes, but that was it. We weren’t getting any more encores than that, but it felt like a full show nevertheless. And it was certainly longer than last time.
My one real gripe about the show was the merch. Will Toledo is a creative guy–his stage lights were great. His gas mask thing is very cool. So why were his shirts so boring? And was there vena tour poster? I saw later on Instagram that maybe there was, but we didn’t see any at the merch table.
Oh well, the show was still great and I had a much better time than last time. I’m glad he wanted to see them.
| 2022 | 2018 |
| Crows ξ | Waves of Fear (Lou Reed cover) (‘The Ending of Dramamine’ intro) |
| Weightlifters Θ | Bodys ‰ |
| Fill in the Blank ⊗ | Fill in the Blank ⊗ |
| Hymn – Remix Θ | (Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn’t a Problem) ⊗ |
| Hollywood Θ | Cute Thing ‰ |
| Bodys ‰ | Sober to Death ‰ / Powderfinger (Neil Young) |
| Something Soon § (request) | America (Never Been) ⇔ |
| Sober to Death ‰ | Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales ⊗ |
| Destroyed by Hippie Powers ⊗ | Destroyed by Hippie Powers ⊗ |
| Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales ⊗ | Something Soon § / Tell Me When My Light Turns Green (Dexys Midnight Runners cover) |
| It’s My Child (I’ll Do What I Like) (Toy Bastard cover) | encore |
| Can’t Cool Me Down Θ (with Bartees Strange) (with Vincent ending) | Beach Life-In-Death ‰ (with Vincent guitar intro tease) |
| Beach Life-In-Death ‰ | |
| encore | |
| Stop Smoking ‰ |
Θ Making a Door Less Open (2020)
⊗ Teens of Denial (2016)
⇔ How to Leave Town EP (2014)
ξ Nervous Young Man (2013)
‰ Twin Fantasy (2011)
§ My Back is Killing Me Baby (2011)
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