Christian Kiefer...

Saturday night I saw a great show. At San Francisco's venerable Bottom Of The Hill I took in a bill that consisted of Magnolia Electric Co., Court And Spark, and the Christian Kiefer Band. It was top to bottom a great show. I'm usually a little wary of BOTH shows simply because I don't like to stand for extended periods of time and there's no good place to settle in comfortably for 3 or 4 hours. Plus it gets crowded as hell and has terrible lines of movement from the front (where the bar is) to the back (where the bathroom is). But BOTH books some great shows and Saturday night was no exception.

Court And Spark absolutely killed it. If you haven't gotten into these guys despite my repeated pleadings here at Bars & Guitars you must immediately go and purchase Witch Season without hesitation. C&S is playing a number of west coast shows with Magnolia Electric Co so if you live in Oregon or Washington check it. Aside from having a quiver a tremendous songs that are reconfigured into a more of a "rock" band format they also played a killer cover of Depeche Mode's "Policy of Truth". The band was loose and clearly enjoying the hometown crowd.

Magnolia Electric Co. reminded me of why I like Trials And Errors so much more than What Comes After The Blues. Trials And Errors seemed to indicate to me that Jason Molina and friends were going to be moving in a decidedly harder rocking direction. I thought the sound suited the band very well and especially did many of the songs on Songs:Ohia's Magnolia Electric Co. a great justice. While What Comes After The blues is certainly no folk album it's also noticeably restrained as compared to the loose jammy vibe of Trials. In concert Magnolia Electric Co. is all rock and then some. They didn't play a bad song, the energy was amazing, the players excellent, even the more maudlin songs were recreated as loose (there's that word again) extended rock freak outs. Molina seemed to really be enjoying himself.

The first band on the bill is from, I think, Sacramento. Called Christian Kiefer Band they sounded like a better version of Kings Of Leon. A slightly southern tinged take on rock that recalled The Band or even early Eagles. They had an accordian player in the band so that makes them OK by me. I enjoyed their set but have found their recorded music to be a less than accurate reflection of what I heard. The songs are much more mellow, whereas live that played it loud and crunchy.

Some songs from Christian Kiefer's 2003 album Medicine Show:

Come Up

Lemon

Stumble

Slack