(all photos by Keith Klenowski)
This year on Fountain Square in Cincinnati, the Indie Summer Concert series has been celebrating it’s second year of bringing the city great music on Friday nights. There have been several great acts to already grace the downtown stage this summer, but arguably, none as well known as The Fiery Furnaces. I’m an unabashed fan of the Furnaces, and even though I have seen them several times, and another great band was playing across town in Son Volt, I still made a point to be on Fountain Square for the show, and I was greeted with just about perfect weather as a result.
I made a point to get there in time to catch the set from Brian Olive, who released an excellent debut record earlier this year on the Alive label. Brian spent time as a member of a couple of other well known Cincinnati bands in The Soledad Brothers and The Greenhornes and while the mention of those two probably gets peoples attention, his solo album stands alone and shows his fellow former bandmates have nothing on him when it comes to creativity. Brian and his band played most of the album live, including standouts “Ida Red” and “There Is Love” and the crowd seemed pretty into it for most of the set.
The Fiery Furnaces were the band we were waiting for though, and by the time they took the stage Fountain Square was bustling with locals. Backed by their friends Bob D’Amico on drums and the always notable Jason Lowenstien on bass, the Friedberger siblings started things off with some familiar words to FF fans, “Later at lunch with the taco lettuce crunch crunch” and attacked a great version of “Chris Michaels.”
Despite the familiar opener, the set was filled mostly with new songs from the ‘Furnaces most recent release I’m Going Away. It was also filled with Eleanor’s sudden fascination with the wireless microphone. “Only in Cincinnati do you get a wireless microphone” she said and then proceeded to spend about half of the concert singing in the crowd, much to the delight of the superfans stationed front and center for the show. It was also a nice treat when local videographer Pete Ohs received a shout out from the stage after Eleanor realized she was looking directly at a building (the 5/3 building) that her likeness was strewn across during the Oh’s directed vid for “Duplexes Of The Dead.” Matthew then announced that the next song was “about Newport, Kentucky” and they launced into Duplexes.
Overall the new material really sounded good, and even with the unusual ability of the band to make the songs sound way different live than they do on record, overall it was quite enjoyable. Standouts in the set included “Charmaine Champagne”, “Cut The Cake” and the closer “Drive To Dallas.” The crowd was good, the weather was brilliant and overall it was a great night on the square. Have I seen The Fiery Furnaces better? Yes. Was it still worth my time and energy? Yes indeed.
