Show at Logan Square

The Chicago Marathon took place on Sunday, Oct. 10^th. None of us participated in such an absurdly physically taxing event this year (although someday I swear I will), but Ward and I did ride our bikes all the way from Uptown to Logan Square. Already a long ride, the over 80 degree weather that this Indian summer has been providing made it a sweaty one, too. Something seemed a bit off as we coasted through neighborhood pumpkin patches with the sun blaring down on us. The high for the day a year ago had been 48 degrees.

The reason for our trek? We had heard there was a cheap show (we actually heard it was free, but this was not the case), at Logan Square featuring Dan Deacon and headlined by a band called Lightning Bolt. Upon arriving, we sat under a tree to catch our breath. The weather was windy as well as hot, and each gust let loose a shower of richly colored fall leaves around us as we sat.

The main source of entertainment for us quickly became a game of “good lord, look what that hipster is wearing.” Logan square is an up and coming neighborhood. It’s hip, and getting hipper every day, apparently. I sort of hate to use the term “hipsters,” to describe the kids at this show, because I’m not even sure what that ever-broadening term even means anymore. But let’s just say that if hipster means individuals that grab random-ass clothing, without concern for matching or how well it fits, from the dumpsters of Salvation Army stores, then there were some “uber-hipsters” here. A couple of my favorites were the dude in the O.R. scrubs and what appeared to be a little boy’s tropical themed swimming trunks and the kid in audaciously high cut-offs with a belly shirt and rainbow suspenders. There was also a dude in an oversized, tan suit and pants combo that appeared to have been haphazardly spray-painted platinum. He was sweating a lot. He was holding up the kid in rainbow suspenders on his shoulders.

So after a bit of people watching, Dan Deacon, the king of off-color attire himself (although today he did not have on that weird skull cap), took the stage. Their bassist wore camouflage bum-gloves. Their guitarist wore a shirt that read “don’t tase me bro” in huge letters. Ironic clothing galore. The band was playing as the Dan Deacon ensemble, which meant an impressive lineup of three drummers, two synth players, a marimba, at times multiple guitars, and Deacon on effect-coated vocals. The show was alright, with my personal highlight being a build up of interlocking percussion and synth to accompany a beautiful fall sunset. The music was almost always so dense, though, that you couldn’t tell the difference from song to song.

After Deacon came Lightning Bolt. In casual conversation I had found out that this band was apparently awesome and pretty old, having been playing together “since like ‘96” a dude told me. I figured this would be awesome—a 90’s band with a cult following that I had never heard before that was going to really blow me away and make me wonder how the hell I had been missing this. This is not at all what happened. Lightning bolt was a noise/spaz/metal outfit whose music made no sense. After three songs, Ward, Erik and I had exchanged enough “what the hell is this?” looks. It was time to be off. Just as we were walking away, a girl came up and suddenly vomited right next to where we had been sitting. It was really time to be off.