The New Pornographers
The Metro, Chicago
October 20, 2005

All week I've been trying to explain who I was going to see on Thursday night.

"The New What?"

"I've never heard of them."

"You're going to a show on a Thursday night? And it doesn't start until 9:00? And there's two opening bands?"

Okay, that last part was my internal monologue as I was riding the Red Line down to the Metro. I'm getting old, folks, and I can't do those late-night shows like I used to. But The New Pornographers are one of the best bands around right now, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity.


My buddy Eric and I met up with his cousin Diana and her gay husband Mr. Eccentric at Depaul University and headed off to the show. Eric's girlfriend was supposed to go originally, but couldn't make it, so Di signed up her buddy to go at the last minute.

I think the Metro is just about the best place in Chicago to see a show. It's more intimate than the Riviera and the sound kicks ass. We got there just as the first opening band, The Immaculate Machines, were starting up. A three-piece power pop band with rotating lead singers and a drummer that looks like he's straight out of a Red Hot Chili Peppers diet plan. They play for about 35 minutes and exit quickly. I start to get a little crush on the keyboardist and lead singer.

Next is Destroyer, fronted by a bushy guy that Eric refers to as "Adam Duritz' lazy brother." I keep thinking that he sounds wayyyyy too much like one of the vocalists from the New P's, and much later it is revealed to me that he is in fact one of the vocalists for the New Pornographers, now fronting his own band.

Destroyer kind of sucked and I wandered around the Metro for a while to stretch my legs and grab a drink. I notice that one of the security guys, who has an extreme fighter look about him, has one of those chains that attaches to his keys, on which hangs a Dominick's Fresh Values card.

Carl Newman (lead singer of the NP's) was hanging by the bar talking to two girls about the recent Magnet article that seemed overly fixated on the fact that a) the Porno's are from Canada and b) Neko Case isn't fitting in any more.

Around 11 the headliners took the stage, and they are mostly made up of members of the first two bands. The pretty keyboardist is back, and the flannel-wearing white-rhythm section from Destroyer turn out to be the flannel-wearing white-guy rhythm section for the NPs as well.

They rip right into "Twin Cinema" and "Use It" from the new album and this has immediately become the best show I've seen in at least a year. (Later I will realize that it's the only show I've seen in a year.) The huge wall of pop sound fill the stage and everyone does their little white guy shuffle, nodding our heads and twisting our corduroy-wearing-pseudo-hipster bodies to a bunch of really fucking great songs.

Neko Case sounds great, Carl Newman is a genius, and I am officially in love with the keyboardist named Kathryn. She was of course looking at me during the entire show. Since she's from Canada, I'm sure she really digs fat bald guys with skin that never sees the sun.

They played a great mix from all three of their albums, and there wasn't a bad song in the bunch. Seriously, this is one of the best bands in the world right now, and it's a shame more people don't know about them.

And they played "Miss Teen Word Power," so that made Di happy.

Around 12:30, after their third encore, the band waved good-bye and walked off stage, and we all stumbled out onto Clark Street and began the long journey home.

Considering that I've only had about 4+ hours of sleep, I feel pretty good. Thank Jebus for standardized testing; all my students are back in their classrooms right now, hunched over their desks filling in little ovals that will (in part) determine if they keep coming to see me. Good luck, kids.