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Ending off an amazing weekend at The Hi-Tone was a first for Memphis: an appearance by Mark Kozelek of Sun Kil Moon and Red House Painters. I should have known something was going to go down when there was a line outside the Hi-Tone by 9pm, and by 9:30 people had taken it upon themselves to completely re-arrange the chairs and tables inside the venue — primarily pushing chairs right up to the edge of the stage to sit down and watch. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that move before at the ‘Tone, but whatever. For the majority of the night, it was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop in the place last night. At $10 at the door, I almost feel guilty for not paying more.
After an opening set of blues-influenced roots music from Walter Gently, Kozelek took the stage and tore through a wide swath of his work. Starting with the Red House Painters song “Summer Dress” and easing into a Sun Kil Moon version of “Never Ending Math Equation” by Modest Mouse, the rest of the night turned into a furious blur of heartbreaks and lost highways. I managed to actually hold it together during most of the show, but when he launched into “Grace Cathedral Park”, I finally broke down and bawled my eyes out. Once he got to “Cassius Clay” in his encore, I finally recovered myself.
Kozelek, for his part, had some difficulty getting the audience to snap out of their hypnosis. Several times in-between songs, he would be tuning and ask the audience, “So….what’s up?” which brought on uncomfortable laughter. “Usually I’m really funny at these things and I have stuff to say but tonight I’m just…I dunno,” he told the crowd. After several attempts at getting people to talk, he finally looked over at me, sitting on the speaker stage left, and said something that sounded like, “Can you get these guys to talk to me?” So I asked him if it was his first time in Memphis. That seemed to break the ice, because he launched into an explanation about how he had never been here before, how much he liked it, and how overpriced the tour of Graceland is. We suggested a visit to Graceland Too, and when we told him it was open all night he was like, “Hey, let’s get out of here and go!”
Sometimes shows come to town that are pretty cool or kinda interesting or sorta fun. Unlike some of those kinds of shows, this show was far too good to be limited by that kind of lingo. Words like “memorable” and “unforgettable” come to mind. If you weren’t there, I am so sorry you missed out.
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