Allow me to pull the curtain back on the way that this particular website operates during the holidays. Once we finalize all our year-end lists, things tend to get way slower around here, and Scott lets us take most of late December off. But someone is always working. Scott is always working, pretty much for his entire life, and one writer per day handles the blog posts. We just divide all of them up among us. Even on Christmas day, someone is posting away. And I have to tell you: On the days when I’m working, I really look forward to blogging about whatever happened at the previous night’s Yo La Tengo Hanukkah show.
What a gift. This band, who would be absolute legends even if they weren’t upholding fun traditions like these, plays a 12-show residency every year during Hanukkah. The shows used to happen at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, and when that place shut down, they moved to New York’s Bowery Ballroom. The band always switches up setlists, shares the stage with surprise openers and comedians, and busts out covers.
The videos from this year’s shows have been especially lovely. On night one, Yo La Tengo played with Sun Ra Arkestra and covered “New York Groove.” On night two, they played with Built To Spill’s Doug Martsch and covered Spinal Tap. Wednesday night’s set ended with an all-star cover of the Patti Smith classic “Free Money,” with Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Matt Berninger, and Lenny Kaye all onstage. And last night, Ira Kaplan began the encore by telling the crowd, “To play the next bunch of songs, we are thrilled and slightly befuddled to welcome Norah Jones to the stage.”
Now: Norah Jones and Yo La Tengo are not really peers. They have vastly different backgrounds, and they operate in different spaces. I don’t get the impression that they know each other all that well, but I do get the impression that they really like one another. The two entities joined forces for a half-hour encore that was generally soft and lovely. Kaplan said that Yo La Tengo agreed to play one of their own songs only if Jones agreed to sing it, so she sang a beautiful rendition of their classic “Tears Are In Your Eyes.” YLT also backed Jones up on her own songs “Carry On” and “Little Broken Hearts.” Together, they covered three songs: the Dixie Cups’ “I’m Gonna Get You,” Randy Newman’s “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today,” and Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight.” Watch the full encore below.
Shout out to one Chad Sclove for putting pretty much last night’s entire show on YouTube. That is just a nice thing to do. The surprise opener at last night’s show was This Is Lorelei, and the comedians were Clare O’Kane and Patti Harrison. Before the encores, Yo La Tengo also sprinkled in covers of the Dixie Cups’ “Gee The Moon Is Shining Bright” and Wilco’s “If I Ever Was A Child.” Check out a few more of those Chad Sclove videos below.
