Yo La Tengo at The Belcourt, Nashville, 1/17/08

For their concert Thursday night at Nashville’s oldest (and only independent) movie theater, the Belcourt, Yo La Tengo adopted an intimate format not unlike the mildly popular VH1 series Storytellers. Like the accepted, often aged rock groups of the aforementioned TV show, Yo La Tengo (together now for 23 years) showered the audience with short anecdotes and songs, the former always transitioning into the latter.For their concert Thursday night at Nashville’s oldest (and only independent) movie theater, the Belcourt, Yo La Tengo adopted an intimate format not unlike the mildly popular VH1 series Storytellers. Like the accepted, often aged rock groups of the aforementioned TV show, Yo La Tengo (together now for 23 years) showered the audience with short anecdotes and songs, the former always transitioning into the latter. It would be unfair to assert that YLT’s rendition, The Free Wheelin’ Yo La Tengo, buries versions by the Eagles or Hanson (old and less-old participants of the VH1 series, respectively); but, given the cruel world of music business, it’s a pleasing contrapasso to imply as much.

Assuaging the audience’s reluctance to speak up, YLT’s instruments and stage presence were at a minimum. Sitting on stools, the band used a bass guitar, acoustic guitar, and sparse drum set (sans kick drum). The audience warmed up (like toes in a swimming pool before a game of Marco Polo) and the answers ranged from cattiness (How’d you get your name? My mom gave it to me) to flattery (“How do you feel about the White Stripes?” They’re nothing compared to Lambchop).

Comforting was the band’s patience with slower pitch queries, (“What were your first jobs?” Parking Attendant; I got to read Ulysses at work; boy that was a good week). In general, the band managed to freeze any snarkiness lurking in the theater, implying that YLT, while mature and at peace, are still champions of snark themselves.

Sonically, the band delivered. Ira Kaplan’s hollow, wooden guitar was a wolf in lamb’s clothing, and discharged notes of errant distortion; his acoustic rendition of time-stopping 90’s alternative shredding (during “Stockholm Syndrome” and “Sugarcube”) seemed alchemic. Likewise James McKnew’s bass plucking (not to mention his falsetto) and Georgia’s brushed and hushed, drums and vocals were content to be just a lamb overt. Regardless of the animals they personify, the music industry has never been their shepherd, hence their response to another audience question: “When are you going to sell out?” You know…we thought about that and our marketing department really thought it wouldn’t work out…they said it’d probably be better to just stick with the whole small band with integrity thing).

Yo La Tengo is a critical favorite with a devoted fan base and has achieved limited mainstream success. This career synopsis, perhaps originally qualified by the Velvet Underground, applies to a lot of formed-in-the-80’s bands now reuniting (The Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., My Bloody Valentine). During their self-titled show, The Free Wheelin’ Yo La Tengo, the band made a strong argument for never breaking up.