frank black @ macewan hall, calgary, ab 11/10/06

hello readers,

last friday i attended a great rock show (at a terrible venue) in calgary. i thought i'd post some highlights of the kickass frank black show at macewan hall.

fb began with a predictable, yet crowd-pleasing bonus: a short solo acoustic set. it seemed to take a few for frank to get warmed up, but some initial sloppiness quickly smoothed out. he continued with an enthusiastic, talented and obviously experienced backing band, including rockin' guitarist duane jarvis, bassist eric drew feldman and the white-haired drummer billy block. set list was something like this:

"what, did you think you were going to hear some pixies songs tonight?"

• where is my mind


• nimrod's son


• los angeles


• manitoba


• wave of mutilation

• remake/remade


• rock a my soul


• bullet


• i'll be blue


• black rider


• ten percenter


• all my ghosts


• headache


• i burn today


• i'm not dead (i'm in pittsburgh)


• gyaneshwar


• suffering


• johnny barleycorn


• burnt out rock n' roll


• all over the world


• terrible ways


• raider man


• horrible day


• dead man's curve


• six sixty-six


• nadine


• sing for joy

despite a remarkably bad opening act (don't take my word for it, check kentucky prophet out for yourself) and a torturous thirty-minute wait afterwards, frank black and co. delivered a fine rock show. because of the nature of his last two albums i predicted a toned-down performance of new material and some mellow versions of some older stuff. instead the audience was treated to a full-on rock affair that was essentially a greatest hits of pixies, fb & the cs, and solo fb. thumb's up. -rory