Jason Lytle, Jason Lytle, how I love thee

February was special for a lot of reasons. First, it was dark and totally sucky. Then, I went on vacation and got strep throat and got to experience the French emergency room. "Je suis mal a la gorge" is how you say "I have a sore throat in French." Lastly, I went to Brussels for the PIAS [NITES] festival. I was hoping to interview Alt-J and Jason Lytle and both interviews fell through the day before. I never wrote a review of the festival because it was such a disappointment. Jason Lytle (who was introduced as Jason "Little") got so frustrated during his set he almost walked off stage, there was some malfunction with a drum tone that kept going off. He ended his set with ten minutes of drone and stomped off looking majorly pissed. The one good thing was I found this amazing photographer, see one of her choice pictures below.

Jason Lytle at PIAS Nites in Brussels, photo by Trân N. Kulash

However, it was a magical month because a few days later, two weeks to be exact, Jason Lytle was in Berlin and I had the privilege of seeing him in a much better venue, Zur Gluhlampe, a great bar with a total SF vibe. It just goes to show how much place has to do with enjoyment of a band or a musician, and a giant warehouse in Brussels is not ideal for someone as earnest and intimate as the former Grandaddy frontman. I wrote a review of it, and was reminded of how much I love writing show reviews.

So, to counteract all the stuff that went wrong earlier, I found a great bar and saw an awesome living room style show. See, life is...worth it. Jason also remixed an Indians track, follow the link for the free download.

Grandaddy Set List, For Noise Festival, Pully, Switzerland

a bit delayed but here is the set list. Thanks to Thibault for sending some more photos of the show.

Intro (Welcome Back Kotter theme song)

El Caminos in the West

Now it's On

Yeah is What We Had

Crystal Lake

AM 180

Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)

Lost on Yer Merry Way

So You'll Aim Toward the Sky

The Go in Go-For-It

12-Pak-599/My Small Love

Levitz

Chartsengrafs

Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake

Hewlett's Daughter

Summer Here Kids

[Encore]

Cover of Pavement's "Here"

He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot

Grandaddy, For Noise Festival, Pully, Switzerland, August 25th, 2012

"and dogs are dead/

with broken hearts/

collapsing by/

the coffee carts"

Dreams come true in Switzerland when Grandaddy plays "Crystal  Lake" 

Well well well, this long awaited moment was finally upon the chosen few, with concert tickets purchased in April and finally, after plane, train, and a steep uphill walk, I am in Pully (pronounced like the first half of a 3-year-old saying "Pwease" without the "s," not like "pulley," a tool used to lift an object of equal or greater weight), standing in the rain and mud, discovering that my fancy-pants North Face jacket is no longer waterproof, and wondering what it's all for.  22 CHF later, I have a Grandaddy t-shirt  (yes I was that guy)  emblazoned with the quote "Now it's on....again" and a cheap plastic poncho protecting me for all it's worth as I wait to see a band I have loved since my early twenties days as a tragic art student.  This is what we do for rock and roll.  Considering my first Grandaddy co-fan in San Francisco was a Frenchman, I am not so surprised at their considerable popularity in Europe, but I am surprised at the age of the crowd, good to know our favorite Modesto rockers are reaching ever younger and impressionable audiences.  Almost as satisfying as hearing the guy behind me requesting "Jeez Louise" which, with the accent, sounds like "Jeez-he Louise-eh."  Ah, adorable.

pedals fuzzy with anticipation

The crew comes out to the opening theme song to Welcome Back Kotter, an appropriate choice after a 7 year break-up-now-hiatus. They opened with "El Caminos in the West," and I now I am sure the song is about this kind of El Camino, not the historic highway in California. The stage setup is reminiscent of classic Grandaddy, so a big screen playing assorted films, my favorite being the video for "Now it's On," where a group of girls, replete with fake beards and trucker hats, play the band members and get up to all sorts of awesome cliched rock star antics, like chugging root beer, fighting, and storming/escaping from of a press conference. A b-side gem that was resurrected, amidst mostly songs from Sophtware Slump and Sumday, was "My Small Love," a short and sweet paen to the lovelorn some of you may know from rarities Concrete Dunes album.  In a tribute to another great California band, also from the Central Valley, Grandaddy covered "Here" by Pavement, during the encore, in a faster, more crunchy guitar/feedbacky version.  Funny, didn't Pavement just reunite in 2010?  So, unlike so many other disappointing and pathetic reunions (I can't even talk about the Codeine show in July, it's still too fresh) where lights and and effects and tired songs mask burned out and compromised musicians, I am happy to report that Grandaddy still has you, crying into your keyboard with your big headphones on, getting on the outside of 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, next to your mixer and laptop, dorking out on midi mixes, while the lawnmowers going and the crickets chirping and methane hangs over the farmlands and air conditioners get abandoned in forests and you wonder where he/she went and why you screwed up so bad. 

So we could analyze the Pavement lyrics: "I was dressed for success/and success it never comes," harkening back to the point where Grandaddy almost-but-not-quite broke big time, but let's just go straight to the end, where "Last time, last time was the best time." Indeed.