Pedro the Lion - Buffalo, NY
Location: Mohawk Place
Author: Aaron Besecker
Photography: Wayne C. Schmidt
He couldn’t call in sick because of scratchy vocal chords. As they always say, the show must go on. On this brisk summer night in Buffalo, an irritated throat was no roadblock. David Bazan has faced worse and beaten most of it.
Through his folk/emo/pop-rock mouthpiece known as Pedro the Lion, Bazan told some of those tales of hardship. Like his songs’ subjects -- death, infidelity, political upheaval -- the battle against an inflamed oral cavity is just another fight to be won. A little reverb added by the soundman at each needed moment, while not fully masking the vocal troubles, was the honey for Bazan’s gullet and the icing for the audience’s cake.
The audience was much more sedated than the one that heard Pedro a year or so earlier at this very same venue. It could’ve been the painfully-late start time of the show, approximately death-AM. That sucked some life out of the crowd. And maybe it didn’t feel as compressed as last time because things got remodeled in the wake of the Great White tragedy. I do apologize, however, to the lady in the pink shoes whose toes I stepped on. Sorry, my friend couldn’t keep her stinkin' hands to herself and pushed me.
No matter how the audience acted or felt, that didn’t stop Bazan and company from stirring up the same menagerie of sweetly bitter emotions typical of every Pedro studio release. Besides Bazan on guitar, Pedro’s lineup also included Ken Maiuri on bass and T.W. Walsh, collaborator on the latest Pedro release, Achilles’ Heel, on drums.
After the shortest break between bands in the history of indie rock, Pedro kicked off a long, devoted set balanced with rockers and mid-tempo lullabies. “Priests and Paramedics,” off of 2002’s Control, gave the set a sullen tone early. Bazan, clad in a plain black t-shirt, swung his head back and forth as he sang. His voice, even at less-than full strength, cut through the air over top the crowd and the rest of the instruments. The band crossed seamlessly into the next song, an exciting, thumping version of “Never Leave a Job Half Done.”
When Bazan wasn’t busy taking breaks and answering questions from the audience as he’s known to do during Pedro shows he serenaded the dreary-eyed audience with rock music, plain and simple. Nothing flashy. No on-stage antics. Just instruments, microphones, and simple but passionate songs. You could see the strain in Bazan's eyes and his neck clenched and twitched as he sang. The unadorned guitar work coupled with a propelling rhythm section created pure renditions, both powerful and healing.
The set spanned the depth of the Pedro catalogue with soulful versions of songs from all the way back to 1997’s Whole EP. The band touched on every release since then, with other EPs included. They also played five of the six songs (save Cat Power’s “Metal Heart”) from their tour-only EP.
Two of the biggest crowd pleasers, aside from “Never…,” happened in the middle and towards the end of the set-“Indian Summer” and “Rapture,” both songs from Control.
Pedro’s dead-on cover of Radiohead’s “Let Down” drew a burst of excited applause as the evening wound down. Bazan introduced his Randy Newman cover by calling Newman a “great songwriter" and placed the performance of Newman's satirical-political song into the context of the current political climate. He told the audience to stop letting advertisers, television, and the media dictate the direction of the country.
It seems no struggle is too big for the roaring feline beast in Bazan to tackle and, considering his track record with troubled times, don’t expect a defeat on this one.
Setlist:
Priests and Paramedics
Never Leave a Job Half Done
Forgone Conclusions
Start Without Me
Big Trucks
Slow and Steady Wins the Race (w/ John Vanderslice)
Bands with Managers
Nothing
The Fleecing
I Do
Indian Summer
June 18, 1976
Political Science (Randy Newman cover)
I Am Always the One Who Calls
Transcontinental
Rapture
When They Really Get to Know You They Will Run
Let Down (Radiohead conver)
Criticism as Inspiration
More Pedro the Lion content at Kludge....
Kludge brings you music and politics
Sign up to our Mailing List - Receive monthly updates on our insightful articles, music reviews, monthly streams and mp3s - no spam! no list sales!
Reader's Comments: