Concert: Crooked Fingers/Neko Case

Last night N. and I dropped E. off at my sister’s house (Thanks, Jan!) and went to a free outdoor concert in downtown Salt Lake. It was a lot of fun. There were probably a couple thousand people milling around. Crooked Fingers was on first, and they were great. Crooked Fingers is the project of Eric Bachmann. I love his songs (a few of them are a little gritty, fyi) and his raspy low voice. Last night N. said that Eric moved to Denver recently and that his day job is selling Cuban sandwiches in Denver. Most talented sandwich maker EVER.

Neko Case was on next. By this time the area in front of the stage was really crowded and so I couldn’t really see her on stage. But her voice was AMAZING, as usual. I’ve seen her perform a couple of times with the Canadian super-group, The New Pornographers (The band’s name was inspired by when 1980s tv evangelist Jimmy Swaggart denounced rock music as “the new pornography”), and every time I see her she is great. I think that Neko has one of the best voices I’ve heard. Her solo music is more country than what she does with the NPs. Last night she sang “Deep Red Bells” and “I Wish I Was the Moon Tonight,” both of which I love.

Here are some YouTube clips of her singing. The first one is her performing, “Deep Red Bells” live and the second is a montage video some emo girl put together set to “I Wish I Was the Moon Tonight” (it had the best audio I could find).

As the evening went on, certain elements of the crowd became more and more annoying. There was a bunch of girls hanging out with some older, scummier guys right next to us. They were all smoking and one of the girls kept waving her cigarette around dangerously close to my face. Then when they got tired of smoking cigarettes, they broke out the pot. Thus so fortified, the girls engaged in fake lesbian kissing to try and win attention and approval from the jerks they were with. These cute little girls just reeked of low self-esteem and desperation. I’ve heard about girls doing this sort of thing, but it was the first time I had actually seen it up close. I guess I really am a total mom now, because as I was standing there I just kept wondering if their parents knew what they were up to. It’s well-known that cute girls often hang out with jerks. But it’s still sad to see it in person.

Other than that pathetic exhibition of low female self-esteem, it was a great show. The series is over for the summer, but I think N. and I are going to make it to more of the shows next year.