Tuneyards Live Performance on KEXP

Last night my cousin Charles treated me to seeing Tuneyards live at Chicago's wonderful Vic Theatre.

A) Amazing. At one point Merrill apologized for her use of the loop pedal that helps create the textures in the band's music. No need to apologize - half the beauty of seeing this band live is watching Merrill create these intricate vocal and percussive loops and then have everyone throw down on top of them.

The band for this tour is: Merrill Garbus - vocals, ukelele, drums, loops, percussion, synths; Nate Brenner - bass (and he is a marvelous bass player), synths, vocals; Abigail Nessen-Bengson - percussion, vocals; Jo Lampert - percussion, vocals; Dani Markham - drums, percussion, vocals. What these people do onstage is amazingly layered, intricate and beautiful.

B) I had not been to the Vic since maybe Tomahawk in the early aughts. LOVE that venue. Great sound.

Also: I'd be remiss if I didn't promote the charity that Tuneyards talked about last night: carrefourcollaborative.org. I donated a dollar, as it was Merrill's humble suggestion. Read about it and then it'd be cool if you did too.