The Lemonheads, Racoon, The New Rivals - Double Door, Chicago, USA - Tuesday 11th December 2007

I was very pleased one day last month, when a lazy look at Pollstar told me that The Lemonheads were playing in Chicago when I was due to be in town. A visit to Ticketmaster later, and I had willingly relieved myself of a bargain $20 for a ticket, plus an utterly less reasonable $18 on top for booking fees and stuff. A Tuesday night gig, not even starting until 9pm, promised to be very bad for the jetlag, but a good night nonetheless.

The venue for the show was the Double Door, in the Wicker Park area of the city. Sitting in the cab up there, we passed by lots of cool looking shops, bars and restaurants, before finally arriving at the venue, so named because it sits on the corner of 2 roads, with a door on each street. After getting in and settling down with a beer, I was pleased to hear Anarchy In The UK amongst the many punk songs that the DJ was playing. It seemed quite strange that I was about 4000 miles from home, listening to a song sung by a man that grew up a couple of hundred yards from where I live, and with Americans singing along loudly, in awful Cockney accents.

The first band on were called The New Rivals, a band from New York who were fronted by a hyperactive man in a red baseball cap, unfortunately resembling Fred Durst a little too much. No matter, his band were pretty good, playing a highly energetic set, of what could I guess be described as College Rock - sounding not totally unlike the soundtrack to American Pie. The songs were good, and the singer was a very engaging frontman indeed. I enjoyed their short set, and it looked like they were enjoying it too.

After a short break, during which the DJ surpassed himself by playing Ice T's Cop Killer, the main support band called Racoon appeared. They are from the Netherlands, and although the singer spoke with a classic Dutch accent, he sang with a classic American one - most unusual. Their set was very interesting, mixing some obvious grunge influences (although fairly soft and melancholic ones) with a funky sound that the Red Hot Chili Peppers would be proud of, and adding hints of country and folk influences as well. A really entertaining mix, and something that was always going to go down well with American audiences. They are a pretty "soft" band, cheesy almost, but their set was generally excellent, and the singer fronted it all extremely well.

When The Lemonheads came on stage just after 11pm, I was just about ready to collapse and fall asleep, but the opening bars of Hospital quickly woke me up again, and No Backbone immediately afterwards kicked things up another gear. What followed that was an hour and a quarter of absolute mayhem, almost overwhelming at times, considering how quickly the great songs were coming. I counted 25 songs in all, in a little over 75 minutes, which shows how many great (short) pop songs Evan Dando has written, and how they were working hard to cram them all into a very intense set. Fairly typically, there was a 45 minute set of full electric noise, followed by some Evan Dando solo stuff, including a fairly rare playing of Different Drum, then a few more electric songs to finish.

Evan Dando's guitar sounded absolutely amazing throughout, with incredible distortion and feedback just adding to the sense of excitement - especially on songs like Down About It, and It's A Shame About Ray, which were extra distorted, and sounded great. The songs came thick and fast, with virtually no chat in between, occasionally the odd bit of feedback, but most often just ploughing straight from one song into another, giving quickfire excitement as you recognised another great song starting. Incredible stuff, and a reminder of what a great band The Lemonheads are when in full flow - driven of course by the genius of Evan Dando.

For this gig, there can't have been more than 200 people in the venue, which wouldn't have held all that many more anyway. Despite this being a fairly normal gig on a normal Lemonheads US tour, the venue was much smaller and more up close than anything you would see in the UK - if only because they need to play fairly big venues in the UK to make the trip worthwhile. In the office on the day before the gig, most people had heard of The Lemonheads, but it seems like they just don't sell all that many tickets in the US any more - although the crowd on the night were typically devoted. All this made for an unusual and special experience, and the chance to see one of my favourite bands in such a small place.