Concert review: Feelies at Millennium Park
The Feelies haven’t set foot on a Chicago stage in 18 years. But at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park on Monday, in what turned out to be a glorious summer night, the New Jersey quintet made time melt before the eyes and ears of several thousand enthusiastic fans.
Though the veterans of the ‘70s postpunk scene have grayed a bit around the edges, they still looked lean and preppy and they played with typical hunched-over earnestness, locking into the rhythm like five drummers in one.
The 70-minute set resembled their first reunion concert last summer at Maxwell’s in Hobokon, N.J., with an arc similar to a jet plane taking off. Only this time, the energy escalated quicker, the songs revving faster and faster until they hit overdrive with “Slipping (Into Something).” As Glenn Mercer began his guitar solo, the relentlessly precise beat dissolved into chaotic pummeling.
By the end, fans in the pavilion rushed from their seats to dance madly at the lip of the stage as the Feelies busted out first-album rave-ups “Crazy Rhythms” and “Fa Ce-La,” plus covers of R.E.M., the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground.
Just like that the Feelies demonstrated that they are emphatically back after a nearly two-decade hiatus. The band managed four wonderfully terse studio albums between 1980 and ’91, the missing link between the Velvets and the Strokes. They bridged the gap with an emphasis on guitar-stoked brevity and directness, and a love of the drone. They worked repetition into mantras, and chiseled away at lyrics until they were practically haikus.
It was a treat to watch the band work, with Bill Million setting the pace with his take-no-prisoners rhythm work on 12-string acoustic and electric guitars. Drummer Stanley Demeski was machine-like in his attention to the beat, playing with a Spartan savagery that never called attention to itself. He worked the rhythm by subtracting elements, so that every roll or cymbal splash seemed like a monumental event. He was abetted by Dave Weckerman, the band’s secret weapon, with his array of percussion nick-knacks; watching him furiously bang a tambourine inches from his face during a cover of the Stones’ “Paint it Black” was one of the night’s indelible images.
Brenda Sauter was a serene presence on bass, her tone deep and assertive. And Mercer pealed off somersaulting solos with an exuberance magnified by his wired, wiry physique; at times he danced with the notes as he veered between his microphone and amplifier like the boy with perpetual nervousness (to quote a Feelies song that wasn’t performed).
The band split the set among its four albums, and added a couple of promising new songs, “Nobody Knows” and “Time is Right,” that sounded worthy of their legacy. And as Monday’s set proved, it’s a legacy worth celebrating, again.
greg@gregkot.com
Feelies set Monday at Pritzker Pavilion
1. On the Roof
2. High Road
3. Nobody Knows
4. Let's Go
5. Deep Fascination
6. Higher Ground
7. The Final Word
8. Time Is Right
9. Away
10. Slipping (Into Something)
11. Doin' It Again
12. Too Far Gone
13. Raised Eyebrows
14. Crazy Rhythms
Encore:
15. Carnival of Sorts (R.E.M. cover)
16. Fa Ce-La
17. What Goes On (Velvet Underground cover)
Second encore:
18. Paint it Black (Rolling Stones cover)