YO LA TENGO (I’ve Got it)YO LA TENGO (Episode II) (rex gets carried away)

6/24/2023

YO LA TENGO (I’ve Got it)YO LA TENGO (Episode II) (rex gets carried away)

Yesterday I described the first set of the Yo La Tengo gig in Detroit Thursday night. Today we move to the incendiary second set.

But first a bit of history at the corner of two of my favourite things – America’s pastime and indie music.

The band name Yo La Tengo derives from an anecdote relating to the hapless New York Mets [Ed. Note – back then mostly referred to by their true name- “Metropolitans] in their inaugural 1962 Major League baseball season.

In the final chapter of a Holl of Fame career, centre fielder Richie Ashburn found himself on this expansion team.

There he played with unknown shortstop Elio Chacón. Turns out he too was in the last year of a short, unremarkable 3 year MLB career.

Chacón was from Venezuela. He did not understand English. During this inaugural season of futility (40 – 120) Ashburn had problems communicating with Chacón when a ball was hit to short centre field in the catchable range of both players.

Ashburn then decided to call off the shortstop on balls in their general area by shouting out “Yo la tengo” – “I’ve got it,”. That worked until

one day when Chacón backed off as Ashburn yelled “YO LA TENGO” Richie wad levelled by leftfielder Frank Thomas crashing into him trying to catch the ball as well. Thomas later asked Ashburn what the hell was a “yellow tango.”

Back now to our regular programming.

After a 20 minute break, Yo La Tengo performed one of the best sets of live music I have ever enjoyed. Ever.

Firstly, on the 2nd song in they played my favourite- ‘Autumn Sweater’ [Ed. Note- Post 273.] This is a C90 song for me.

This was significant because I had noticed from Setlist.fm that this song was not being played every night on this the “This Stupid World ” tour.

Here is a version of the song played in the same style in London in April , 2023-

From then the set was blistering Yo La Tengo tracks played by Ira, Georgia and James with passion and intense musicianship synthesized into sonic bliss, shoegaze perfection and chaos.

I have to focus on the last track (before a 3 track encore) ‘I Heard You Looking’ (also from the 1993 LP “Painful”)

An instrumental classic stretched by Ira’s breathtaking guitar work over 13 minutes and two guitars. Here is a version from June 13 (not 23 as it says) in Montreal.

Before you watch though, look for this guy…

He came on stage unannounced during the song and stood at the synth. He looked out at the audience like he had just been beamed in from another planet and was trying to figure out where he was. I couldn’t tell if he was working the synth or not. He walked off before the song ended. Group member Liam from DOCTOR DISC was there and we chatted yesterday about how it was fabulous.

I am trying to figure out who he is and foolishly forgot to ask Ira when I chatted with he (and Georgia) at the merch table at gig’s end getting two LPs I purchased signed.