Warsaw packed with Les Savy Fav fans
- Les Savy Fav
- Les Savy Fav plays an impressive set to hundreds of smelly hipsters at a packed Warsaw ballroom.
I’ve been to a lot of concerts in my day. It’s just the nature of things that some will be awe-inspiring and some will be disappointing. Some will destroy your expectations and leave you wondering what just happened. This was one of those.
Before Friday’s show to a healthy crowd, I wasn’t overly familiar with Les Savy Fav’s incredible live performances. I’m a fan of the “Inches” singles collection, which is a great album showcasing the band’s career, but pretty much all that I had heard about their live shows is that “they’re great live.” That’s a lukewarm endorsement, and a more than a bit of an understatement. To say that they’re great is to say that there are a lot of hipsters in Williamsburg. Williamsburg is teeming with those filthy mothers. And Les Savy Fav is more than great live.
After experiencing Les Savy Fav life, it’s become a little clearer why they’ve received only such seemingly faint praise. Their live show is hard to describe. Lead singer Tim Harrington is bald and bearded with a beer gut that would make Norm Peterson proud. Looking at him, you’d hardly guess that this man was supplying the vocals on their albums. His outward appearance is just the beginning. Harrington is clearly a man who takes great pride in his body, as he’s more than willing to flaunt what he’s got throughout the performance. What started as a fat guy in a shirt a few sizes too small morphed into a fat guy who couldn’t keep his undersized shirt on and later to a fat guy in a spandex bodysuit detailing the locations of the human organs and eventually to a fat guy who couldn’t keep his spandex suit on.
Normally stunts like these might make me take pause and really wonder what this show was all about. The rest of the band was intensely focused on the music, almost oblivious to Harrington’s antics. It was almost like Harrington himself was doing his best to distract the crowd from the music, just to prove that it couldn’t be done. The rest of the band never missed a beat and Harrington’s stage bravura never distracted from his own singing.
Musically, the band stayed fairly true to the studio versions of their songs, with just enough live flair thrown in to keep it interesting. While I never suspected it of Les Savy Fav, It’s always nice to get proof that a band’s studio work isn’t cleaned up to get it to the point where it’s enjoyable to listen to. This isn’t always a bad thing — just look at how much work went into every Beatles album — but it speaks volumes about a band’s actual musical ability when they sound just as good live.
The show itself took place in Greenpoint’s Warsaw ballroom, where fresh pierogies and kielbasa are served by actual Polish people. Even if that’s not your thing, the beautiful ballroom itself has a lot to admire, and despite getting some underwhelming reviews as far as sound quality goes, I found it to be enjoyable. Unlike the last live show I saw, I was actually able to hear myself and others speak after I left the venue. That might not sound like a huge plus, but your ears will thank you afterward.
Les Savy Fav wrapped up their tour with this show at Warsaw, but if you’re not familiar with their music, that just means you have time to catch up before they hit the road again. Warsaw has a fairly good lineup for the coming months, and I highly recommend you check it out if there’s anything up your alley.
Also, Mrs. T’s makes a passable excuse for a pierogie, so get on that too.
