Eleanor Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces

December 31, 2009 @ Lincoln Hall

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By Dave Miller

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There were so many music options around the Chicago area for New Year's Eve that it was difficult to settle on one. It wasn't until late afternoon that my girlfriend and I decided on The Fiery Furnaces at Lincoln Hall. I didn't know much about them, but I liked what I heard while researching them online. With a new year starting, it felt right to begin 2010 on an adventurous note and check out a band we hadn't seen in a new venue.

We arrived about 15 minutes before the first band, The Smith Westerns, kicked off the night at 9 p.m. Lincoln Hall made a good impression immediately. The front door leads you right into a bar with a warm atmosphere. Some nice widescreen TVs were showing the Blackhawks, and they were turned off once the game ended. Good move. The spacious but cozy main floor - think about three times the size of Schubas - was empty. We used the pre-concert time to check out the balcony. That area is very nice and fairly spacious as well. Most of the chairs around the railing were already taken. The view is nice up there, but it's a tad too far for my preference - think at least twice as far from the stage as Metro's balcony, but that's still not bad. I just prefer to experience live music on the floor as close to the stage as possible most of the time. There's a bar against the right wall on the main floor. It was limited to some draft beer and shots so we headed back to the front bar for its wider selection. You can bring bottles back into the concert hall so that was no problem.

A couple dozen people were on the main floor by the time The Smith Westerns opened. They were four local kids who didn't look old enough to drink and were on the shy side. They weren't bad, but the frontman suffered a broken string on his electric guitar early. From there, they struggled and called it quits early. It was amusing and sad at the same time. Somebody yelled for another song, but the guitarist mumbled something about the string and the band made a quick getaway.

Cryptacize, a band from California, was next. They're fronted by a female vocalist, Nedelle Torrisi, who spends about half the time playing a synthesizer. Guitarist Chris Cohen handled some vocals, too. Torrisi sang clearly, though her playful voice wasn't powerful enough to quite stand out from the music, at least not from the front of the stage. The mix may have been better further from the stage. What I liked about their melodic music was they allowed plenty of space in it. Cohen's guitar, the rhythm section and Torrisi's synthesizer gave each other plenty of room to work. It was an enjoyable, upbeat set.

Cryptacize's setlist:

One Block Wonders
Mythomania
Lost Beauties
New Spell
What You Can't See Is
Galvanize
Say You Will
Blue Tears
Tail & Mane

This was a night for me to take a break from my usual concert reporting routine. I didn't take notes. It was time to just enjoy New Year's Eve and try out my new camera, which my girlfriend gave me for Christmas. It's supposed to be good at taking photos without a flash, which is important. I don't like bothering musicians with flashes going off in front of them. That was a necessarily evil with my old camera, but I think the new one is going to be good once I learn how to adjust it to get the most out of it. As it was, I was able to take some good pictures without a flash.

At the end of the night, I asked Matt Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces if I could have a setlist so I could write about the show. "Is is going to be a good review?" he asked. I assured him it would. This was no quid pro quo. I wouldn't have bothered asking if I didn't dig the performance.

I liked the few songs by The Fiery Furnaces that I listed to before the show, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much better I liked them live. They have a bigger sound in concert. I know they're known for being experimental, but they sounded less like art-rockers than rockers. I read where they like reworking, rearranging and rewriting their songs. Whatever they're doing is working at the moment.

The Fiery Furnaces are fueled by the brother-sister act of Matt and Eleanor Friedberger, who grew up in Oak Park. Matt plays guitar and handles most of the music. Eleanor is the singer and writes most of the lyrics. They moved to New York City in 2000. Drummer Bob D'Amico and bassist Jason Loewenstein have held down the rhythm since 2005 after the group went through drummers like Spinal Tap earlier in the decade.

Eleanor is a captivating lead singer. She's an assertive, strong singer of her smart lyrics. A couple days earlier I saw the Patti Smith: Dream of Life documentary on TV. Eleanor looked a lot like Patti Smith with her shaggy hair falling in her face and a white t-shirt hanging on her lean frame. There was a difference in footware. Eleanor wore cowboy boots as opposed to Smith's combat variety. While Smith can work the stage, Eleanor chose to be expressive from the center stage area, though she took a turn behind the drums late in the set for a duet with her brother.

Matt was stationed on the right of the stage, and moved to the front and back as if conducting everyone with his guitar playing. There's some cool twists and turns in the music. D'Amico navigated through them nicely while Loewenstein provided some deep and lively bass. That was a nice counterbalance to Matt's brighter, guitar colors.

The Fiery Furnaces are a good, interesting band with onstage chemistry. My bet is their best days are still ahead of them. I'd like to see Eleanor work the entire stage. She certainly seems capable of that. I'd like to see their musical range become greater onstage. I think they're capable of that, too. I look forward to seeing them again.

The Fiery Furnaces' setlist*:

Rub-Alcohol Blues
Charmaine Champagne
Duplexes of the Dead
Automatic Husband
Ex-Gura
Chris Michaels
The End is Near
Keep Me in the Dark
Up in the North
Drive To Dallas
Evergreen
Crystal Clear
Cut the Cake
Ray Boivier
"New Year's Song"
Auld Lang Syne
Worry Worry
Wolf Notes
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A Candymaker's Knife in My Handbag
Asthma Attack
Two Fat Feet
Japanese Slippers
Navy Nurse
Single Again
Benton Harbor Blues
Chief Inspector Blancheflower
Tropical Ice-Land

Start: 11:18 p.m./Finish: 12:48 a.m.
Totals: 29 songs, 1 hour and 30 minutes

*Setlist may not be exact. I was trying to follow the songs off Eleanor's setlist as they were being played. I think I correctly added their two songs that were played in the encore in addition to what was on the handwritten setlist. I can't remember exactly when they played the two New Year's songs late in the main set so I took a guess. A song or two from the handwritten setlist may not have been played, though I don't know of any. Twenty-nine songs seems like a lot in 90 minutes, but the two New Year's songs went fast and sometimes one song led straight into another so it's possible.