This is night two of Terra’s Hotel Cafe August residency. Terra was accompanied on 3 songs by Lester on guitar, her drummer that also doubles as a guitarist. For the 3 songs he contributed to (1984, What We Do, and Suffer For Her Sins), he switched between electric and acoustic guitar.

Set List:
Perfect Day (Lou Reed Cover)
Smile
You For Me (from the vaults)
Vicodin Song
What We Do
Up Here*
1984 (new song)
Suffer For Her Sins
The Drugs Don’t Work (The Verve Cover)

Terra’s set list was a pleasant surprise with her opening the set with her rendition of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”- a song i haven’t heard her play since last year’s show. She decided to play it because she heard it in a restaurant one afternoon and it inspired her to reintroduce it. “You For Me”, a song i have never included swift high and low vocal changes. Apparently, its going to be on the new record. Another new song was “1984″ which with the help of Lester playing guitar in a more blues style, is one of Terra’s more guitar drive songs. I’m going to feed my ego and say she wrote this song for me because its my birth year. I wonder if the year is significant?
Perhaps my favorite song of the night was her cover of “The Drugs Don’t Work” by The Verve. Hearing her cover is one of the reasons that i love Terra so much. Her ability to make the song her own and how much of herself she invests in performing the song that it feels like she wrote it. It packs such an emotional punch that it was reminiscent of some of Terra’s older songs like Flesh For Bones, Ghosts of Happy Endings, or Tonight. I definitely look forward to hearing this one again.

*I think she also played “Up Here” somewhere in the middle of her set but I’m not positive.

More Photos from Terra’s gig can be found on the Audio Taco Flickr Page:

Check out Terra’s moving cover of The Verve’s “The Drugs Don’t Work”:

Im not sure if any of you have been following Amanda Palmer’s (Dresden Dolls) video series on YouTube but she is releasing a video for ever track off her solo disc until its release date. Each video is released two weeks apart and the latest installment is for the song “Strength Through Music” directed by Michael Pope. It is a harrowing memorial to violence/ shooting in schools. The video takes place in Amanda’s old high school with actors from the school’s drama department. Its exactly how I imagined the video to be- a dreamy quality much like the Virgin Suicides. The end shot of Amanda counting down is haunting. I don’t think its any secret that i greatly admire Amanda and this is just another reason why.

The night marked Terra Naomi’s first date of her August residency and she decided to do something a little different by taking requests from fans on her Myspace page. I was expecting to hear some old favorites she hasn’t played in awhile. Unfortunately, she decided to stick to mixing up her set with contributions from her friends like Keaton Simmons Catherine Feeny and Jonas Gladnikoff (sp?) instead. There were times during her set where she did a few warm up notes on the piano and i got overly excited as it was the opening note to “Weight of Air” and “Ghosts of Happy Endings” but as my luck would have it, it didn’t signal a place in her set. As you can see from the set list, it was pretty much her normal set but shorter.

Set List:

Say Its Possible
Not Sorry (w/ Keaton Simmons)
Bring It On Home (Sam Cooke cover)
Vicodin Song
Flesh For Bones (w/ Catherine Feeny)
Up Here
What We Do
Ashes (w/ Jonas)

Terra opened her set off solo before inviting Keaton Simmons onstage to play guitar on “Not Sorry”. Keaton’s guitar work definitely gave the song a more bluesy tone and it was a nice change to the otherwise stripped down version of the song. Next, Terra and Keaton did a cover of the Sam Cooke song “Bring It On Home” which is another blues- inspired track. During “Flesh For Bones”, Catherine Feeny, a singer- songwriter that played before Terra’s set, came up to assist with backing vocals. Catherine’s voice complimented Terra’s nicely in that her voice is lower and slightly hushed. “Flesh for Bones”, being such an intimate number, was more haunting and moving than ever. “Ashes” featured a Swedish musician, Jonas, that Terra is writing with and allowed him to take over on main vocal duties. The song was a piano ballad with pop vocals. I felt that Jonas did a little over singing but it was an pretty good song. Hopefully during the next show, Terra will dust off some of her older songs and give us a few surprises.

I thought i would post the complete Set List in the correct order for the show in case people were searching for it. Photos and review coming later today!

Cologne (Ben folds cover)
Astronaut
Ampersand
Icarus (Jason Webley Cover)
Blake Says
Bad Habit (Dresden Dolls)
Ask Amanda Break
I Google You (debut song, written by Neil Gaiman)
Runs In The Family
Ask Amanda Break
Coin Operated Boy (Dresden Dolls)
Guitar Hero
The Night Comes On (Leonard Cohen Cover feat. Jack Palmer, Amanda’s dad)
Apres Moi (Regina Spektor cover)
The Point Of It All

Encore:
Creep (Radiohead Cover)
Camille O’Sullivan cover

I first posted about 8mm here. After countless shows, 8mm, comprised of Sean, Juliette, and Jon remain on my roster of bands i regularly see. The last time i saw them was at the Knitting Factory in February and that venue isn’t ideal for their type of sound. This gig is the start of a monthly residency at U31. The sound was pretty good compared to the Beauty Bar gigs and i was surprised to see a crowd especially since it was a late Wednesday night show( Props to the dancers to my right.)

Set List:
You Know
Stunning
Bones
Forever and Ever Amen
Quicksand
No Way Back
Never Enough
Give It Up
Long Snake Moan (PJ Harvey Cover)

On with the show……

The band’s music is very personal to me since my girlfriends and i sing 8mm songs to each other (yes, we are really that gay for one another). There are a lot of stares and whispers between us as the set progresses. The group kicked off the set with “You Know” which is one of their heavier numbers. Its always the hook to get the crowd to shut up and pay attention. They played “Quicksand” which is pretty much my jam and i forgot how much i missed hearing it until they played it. “Forever and Ever Amen” sounded better than ever as Sean had to do his time on vocals. 8mm shows are always fun because its a different experience. every time.

Be sure to check out 8mm at U31 on the 2nd or 3rd Wednesday of every month!