Kim Deal is currently on tour promoting her solo album Nobody Loves You More (or is the album promoting the tour? I don’t know how the music industry works anymore), and last night we saw the show here in Los Angeles.
I don’t know if spoiler etiquette applies to concerts, but the show had Kim and her touring lineup — including trumpet, trombone, violin, and cello players — play the entirety of the new album, and then two encores with selected songs from the history of the Breeders and her solo singles.
Morgan Nagler is the opening act for the LA-area shows, and I enjoyed her set a good bit. She came back on stage to sing on the tracks she’d co-written with Deal, and I was especially happy that they did my favorite, “The Root.”
It was interesting, because I’d been wondering what distinguishes a Kim Deal solo album from a Breeders album, and the show highlighted the difference. It felt more like the results of Deal collaborating with a bunch of different people over a long career, instead of a specific lineup. Kelley Deal was there singing backup, but she kept to the back mostly, because this was Kim’s project. The exception was when Kim left the stage to do “Bats in the Afternoon Sky,” an instrumental track that was performed by Kelley and another singer, a keyboardist, and (if I remember correctly?) a guitarist. It was difficult to make out what was said in the introduction, but I think they mentioned that the musicians were from the Kelley Deal 6000.
In any case, it was a really great show. I was skeptical how the tracks from the new album would do live, since to me they feel more produced than any of Kim Deal’s music I was familiar with, but the end result was flawless. Highlights for me were “Crystal Breath,” “Big Ben Beat,” “Safari,” “Coast,” and “Off You.”
Something I realized during the Soul Coughing concert last year was that it’s actually a good thing that my music tastes mostly calcified sometime in the late 1990s. It means I’m not only aging along with the band, but with the band’s audience. It’s always nice to see creaky graybeards both on stage and in the crowd, to see equal representation of My People. (Even if it is a reminder that no matter how much I like to think of myself as unique, I’m very much a Type of Guy).
That was in effect for the Kim Deal show, but I guess her audience is more cross-generational, since there were a lot of youths there. And by youths, I mean Los Angelenos probably in their early- to mid-30s, likely going through their own premature life crises. As they violated my clearly-defined personal space boundary, pushing in front of us to stand directly blocking view of the stage and with their backs and asses within inches of rubbing against me, I felt myself going into White Middle-Aged Man Hulk mode. (“You wouldn’t like me when I’m cranky.”) Plus I was getting really hot and my back hurt, so I was happy when the midwesterners-in-their-early-60s on stage decided to end the show after around two hours.