I’m not given to exaggeration or hyperbole, but the Fiery Furnaces are the best thing to have hit the Empty Bottle, nay, Chicago, since the Effigies came there last week. I didn’t see the Effigies, but I’m told they were awesome by other people who didn’t see them because they were sold out.
I learned my lesson this time and bought tickets online. Oh, it felt so good to pass right on by those losers fans standing around outside and be waved on in.
If you haven’t heard any of the Fiery Furnaces, I suggest you go out and buy one of their albums immediately. Don’t even bother to read the rest of this article. It sucks anyway, unlike the Fiery Furnaces. They rock. I think I’ve said that.
If you haven’t seen them in concert, let me clue you in. They don’t just play their songs; they tear them apart, change them, mix them up, and put them back together. The result is a sort of musical quilt, an hour-long collage of music, if you will. You might hear pieces of this song here, and that song there, and you might hear those songs elsewhere in the course of the night. There’s no stopping, no time to breathe, no reason to stop dancing. Eleanor Friedberger hypnotizes you into a (dare I say it?) fiery frenzy of musical fervor and entraps you in stories of bad marriages, bad men and lost dogs. (Okay, no more bad puns, I promise.)
Don’t worry. The dog was found. They’re nothing if not upbeat.
Now, you know a band is good if they’re not from Chicago and I’m still fawning over them. However, I’m a little confused. They’re based out of New York, but an unofficial biography hints at a brief Chicago past. Plus, a couple of their songs mention Chicago settings. If anyone else has any other information about their connection with Chicago, please let me know.
I’d give you a pretty picture to look at, but sadly, I suck. My batteries drained completely, leaving me without a camera last night.