In general, when I arrive at a show and learn that I am walking in on an opening act that I was not aware of – I’m not very pleased. I had a timeline in my head of what I thought set times were going to be and realized that now, all of a sudden, every thing had been pushed back an hour. Sunday night however, it only took about five minutes for me to realize that I was going to be catching a great set of music from Clare & The Reasons, a band I had never heard of – in fact I did not know the name of the group until after their set was over and I swung by the merch table.

Clare & The Reasons touring band are a quartet, fronted by Clare Manchon and all four musicians are multi-instrumentalists. There was fiddle, trombone, clarinet, keyboards, guitars and basses constantly being passed around amongst all the members of the band, and while there was no percussionist…Clare had a foot-tambourine setup that added a little extra punch in the choruses of some songs.

They played the majority of their brand new album Arrow including the first-ever performance of the “Japanese Bonus Track”. As her set came to a close, Manchon announced that “You will all know this song” and launched into a great arrangement of That’s All (which is also on the album Arrow). With the signature piano line being played on a clarinet, the crowd – of unfortunately only dozens of people – let out an audible laugh and Clare quickly explained, “It’s not funny” into the microphone. This band is opening for Vic Chesnutt through November 7th, I highly recommend arriving early to check them out. Manchon’s gentle voice is a perfect fit for their type of music which borders somewhere between Twee Pop and gypsy street musicians. As my friend Indie Dan said, “Even though there wasn’t an accordion onstage, I totally could see them having one.”

Here is their music video for the song All The Wine:

READ ON for more from Dave including a review of Vic Chesnutt’s new band and to see the hilarious infomercial for Clare & The Reasons New Album…

In my limited experience, Vic Chesnutt’s stage banter alone is worth the price of admission. After his first of many on-stage belches, he started singing the word burrito over and over again and explained that it tastes just as good the second time around. After explaining that two of his band members were not at the show because they were getting flu shots up in Canada, he told the crowd “I don’t miss them.” And hands-down the best introduction of the night was to the song Philip Guston. Chesnutt explained,

This song is called Philip Guston. I love this painter. All the lyrics…you see I think Pitchfork accused this song of being…stupid. All the lyrics come from Phillip Guston. Either words on his paintings or titles of songs. It’s a heavy song – they’re fucking idiots.

Chesnutt’s band is powerful. It is the same band from his September release At The Cut. There were seven of them up there – four guitar players, bass, keyboards (she exclusively played a Korg CX-3 organ) and a drummer. I have no idea what the two missing members play, probably guitar – I could see this band having six guitars. The arrangements were dark and vaguely Post-Rock for brief periods of time, makes sense having your backing band made up of members of Fugazi and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The encore featured one song by the band and one song by Vic solo, the only solo performance of the night.

Jason Adler has already put this show up for download at bt.etree.org. I’m going to embed the opening song of the set titled Everything I Say:

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As promised, here is this wacky infomercial for Clare & The Reasons New Album:

Tour Dates:
October 2009
23 – Ottawa, Ontario – Mavericks
24 – Montreal, Quebec – Ukrainian Federation
25 – Somerville, MA – Somerville Theatre
26 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
27 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
28 – Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church
29 – Baltimore, MD – Ottobar
30 – Washington, DC – Black Cat
31 – Wilmington, NC – The Soapbox

November 2009
1 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl
2 – Athens, GA – 40 Watt Club
4 – Newport, KY – Southgate House
5 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
6 – Detroit, MI – Detroit Institute of Arts
7 – Toronto, Ontario – Lee’s Palace
19 – Minneapolis, MN – Cedar Cultural Center
20 – Winnipeg, Manitoba – West End Cultural Centre
21 – Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – Amigos
22 – Edmonton, Alberta – McDougall United Church
23 – Calgary, Alberta – Knox United Church
25 – Victoria, British Columbia – Lucky Bar
26 – Vancouver, British Columbia – Red Room
27 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
28 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
30 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall

December 2009
1 – Los Angeles, CA – The Regent
2 – Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
4 – Denton, TX – Hailey’s
5 – Austin, TX – Central Presbyterian Church