Given City Arts Fest, along with the already busy fall music calendar, last weekend brought a wide variety of music and art acts to the stage with varying amounts of time and experience in the business. But that doesn’t mean they all can’t be successful in their own way. Look no further than Pickwick, John Osebold’s Seateeth, and Portishead.
Saturday night Pickwick played a sold-out headlining City Arts Fest slot at the Crocodile. Not bad for a local band celebrating the first anniversary of their debut EP. The six-piece R&B indie popsters kept the crowd at a strong simmer for most of the night before kicking it up a notch for the tambourine rattle and hands in the air during “Hacienda Motel,” of course. Damien Jurado showed up to act as hype man during the encore, and as goes Jurado, so goes the rest of Seattle. Pickwick has had a whirlwind year with no signs of stopping, as they’ll be at work recording their first full-length soon and departing on a national tour currently set for next spring.
Newly-crowned Stranger genius John Osebold, aka Jose Bold, used his two City Arts slots (Thursday and Saturday nights at the Theatre Off Jackson) to premiere his new performance piece Seateeth. The work starts out as a literary reading before transitioning into a nautical tale a la Moby Dick by way of the magical realism of Haruki Murukami, with both influences fairly clear.
As always, it’s hard to take your eyes off John and his glorious man-locks, his writing is both playful and strong, and he does some impressive physical acting, as when he plays a man floating in a water-filled elevator. But surrealism doesn’t excuse inconsistencies in tone, and as is often the case with the “Awesome” crew, some of the humor is a little inside baseball. It’s nice to see Kirk Anderson show up in a small part, but if you’re viewing this piece without knowing the actors, does it make the same impact? You’ve got at least one more chance to see Seateeth, as Osebold will reprise the show Friday, October 28 at SAM Remix.
Meanwhile, Portishead has only made three studio albums (plus one live release) since 1994, and yet somehow they’ve never been bigger–like they’re frozen in time and adulation. Fresh off curating All Tomorrow’s Parties in Asbury Park, the seminal trip-hopping Bristolers are now on their first US tour proper in fourteen years (the occasional one-off don’t count). And Sunday night, they defeated the terrible acoustics of WaMu Theater to put on one amazing show.
Portishead drew from all three albums–“Wandering Star,” “Cowboys,” “Mysterons,” “Machine Gun,” “Glory Box,” “Sour Times,” and “The Rip” all made an appearance in the setlist–as spastic video, both pre-recorded images and live footage of the show, played behind the band. Beth Gibbons was all pointed elbows and hunched shoulders, her strong yet fragile voice her only weapon against her still obvious stagefright. Portishead came to work and didn’t stop till they filled that cavernous arena with crisp drums, theremin-like wails, and scratched vinyl. The video below gives a taste of what it was like. Behold the professionals: