Jay Reatard at the Wiltern

I'm stepping out of the regular routine today, by doing a second post. This second post isn't to share another record, but to talk about Jay Reatard. Last night I saw Jay open for the Black Keys at the Wiltern Theater in LA. It should be said right up front, that while I am a fan of the Black Keys, the main reason I bought the tickets was to see Jay Reatard. To be perfectly honest I am not a fan of the Wiltern as a venue, but the thought of actually seeing Jay Reatard convinced me to buy tickets. With that said I can firmly say again that I hate the Wiltern Theater and that it was not an ideal venue to see old Jay. I really do hope he comes around again and plays a smaller venue. His energy does get lost in that cavernous space.

As far as the performance went he and the band were great. They shredded through their songs, barely stopping to take a breath. 30 minutes came and went so quickly that I couldn't believe he was done, when he left the stage.

I wish the crowd was more into the show. I think most everyone was there to see The Black Keys. The audience was a little older than I'm used to. They were also there to hear some blues. The result is that it didn't seem like there were ready for the garage punk assault of Jay Reatard. Kind of a shame, but such is life. Like I said before, I just hope that the next time I see him it is at a smaller more intimate venue with more fans that are into the music.

I took a little video of a few of my more favorite song. I hope to post those here in a few days when I have the chance. I also have a Jay Reatard 7" posting planned in the coming weeks. So keep an eye out for that. In the mean time you can check out Jay Reatard on youtube. There a tons of videos. Here is one of "Nightmares" which is one of my favorites. It was on my Halloween mix 2007.






If anyone was wondering The Black Keys were pretty good as well. I wish the acoustics of the venue were better. I wish I was a lot closer. I wish a lot of things. But all in all it was a good concert.

By the way you can check out Jay Reatard's blog at http://jayreatard.blogspot.com/. He posts demos and things every once in a while.

Enjoy!