After the classic ’08-’13 Oh Sees lineup played their final show (at Great American Music Hall in December ’13), I spent a lot of time lamenting their demise. They’d been my favorite band, the best live act I’d ever known, and they were calling it quits.
Here on Mission Mission I posted a lengthy but obtuse collection of Oh Sees-related photos I’d taken over the years.
I changed my Facebook profile pic:
But within a couple months, before I even had a chance to fully process this loss, frontman John Dwyer came back with a new Oh Sees album and a new three-piece touring lineup. The album (“Drop”) was good, and I got tickets to the new band’s first club date, down in their new home of Los Angeles.
They opened with one of my favorite songs, but without Mike on drums and Brigid on synths and backing vocals and Petey being Petey — it just sounded hollow and sad and I went and sat in the back for a while and then left the show before they were even done.
And then I lamented that for a long time. And I walked out on their headlining set at Burger Boogaloo last year, for the same reasons. And I skipped their most recent residency at the Chapel entirely. And my friends were like, “Why can’t you just chill out and try to enjoy yourself?”
They’d been my favorite band! I’d seen them 60+ times and loved every single show, and now I couldn’t stand to watch this new incarnation for more than 30 seconds.
Wellllllllll, now there’s yet another lineup (two drummers, both of them new additions to the group!), and they’re doing 3 nights at the Chapel starting tomorrow, and it’s been sold out for weeks already, and the new album “Mutilator Defeated at Last” is really killer — so I’m gonna go, one of the nights, and just chill out and try to enjoy myself.
(Meanwhile, more casual fans than me may not have noticed any difference at all; they’re still selling out 3-night residencies at a place as huge as the Chapel; they’re clearly still awesome, so if you haven’t had the pleasure, you should get on StubHub asap.)
Here’s “Web,” the new album’s opener:
, I spent a lot of time lamenting their demise. They’d been my favorite band, the best live act I’d ever known, and they were calling it quits. Here on Mission Mission I posted a lengthy but […]</p>
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Change no good
<3
I’m going tomorrow and ready to chill out and enjoy myself.
Tampon consumption optional
this is like the soundtrack for white 20-something nerds ruining a neighborhood.
You’re welcome