Live Music Review: The Earlies

So last Friday I finally made it out of my house for some live music at the Echo. The show opened with Great Northern. I had recently seen them open for Brendan Benson at Spaceland but I didn't pay much attention. They share some members with Earlimart (but not Aaron Espinoza) and sound quite a bit like Earlimart. There's also bits of Grandaddy, the Flaming Lips and the Beatles in their sound. I enjoyed it. Next up was Idaho Falls. The leader of Idaho Falls is Neil Halstead's (from Mojave 3 and Slowdive) pedal steel player. I like the pedal steel moments on Halstead's records and I like the music of Idaho Falls. My only real problem with them is the slightly affected way that Raymond sings the songs. He sings with a twang that he probably doesn't have when he speaks. It's the same thing that bugs me about early Jeff Tweedy. Finally the Earlies came on (at about 12:15 AM). I'm old and I was anxious to get home to bed so they had to be good to keep my attention. Fortunately they were. They opened with two of the best songs off of their album. There were eight people on stage and many of them played multiple instruments. This included strings, keys, horns, guitars, drums, bass, triangle, etc. Very full and great live sound. You've got to appreciate that kind of ambition on a tour of small clubs. There are about five really good songs on their album and they played all of them. They rounded it out with some stuff I didn't recognize. Normally I don't like to go out on Friday night, but the Earlies were well worth it. See them if they make it to your town. I even stopped by the merch table to pick up a picture disc 7". The full length vinyl comes with a really nice book. If I hadn't bought the expensive import of the CD I would have picked that up too.