[Editor's note: this is a dispatch from Sam Edsill, with photos by Kristin Wood.]
It’s a five-hour drive from Iowa City up to the Twin Cities, and in November, with nothing but bare trees and overcast skies to look at, it can be a grueling trip. But it is one well worth making when the payoff is a CD release show by Minneapolis pop quartet The Owls. Last Thursday’s release party for the group’s long-awaited new album, Daughters And Suns, had all the air of a family reunion, with nearly constant congratulations from the band’s old friends and relatives, and even a few home movies. It was the epitome of a feel-good show.
Anticipation for the group’s first full-length had been building since their 2004 debut EP, Our Hopes And Dreams, which garnered critical acclaim and a modest college radio success in the song “Air.” The Owls’ songs are pretty, with delicate harmonies and soft melodies reminiscent of earlier Belle and Sebastian records, or, as others have pointed out, the Velvet Underground. But many contain an undercurrent of dread, of a world spiraling out of control.
The stage at the Cedar Cultural Center was adorned with elk horns used in the Owls’ video for album-opener “The Way On” – apropos décor for the opening band, local 5-piece Elk. Fronted by veteran Eric Luoma of Bellwether, Elk played a good 40-minute set of spacious, lonesome tunes, with echoes of folk-era Neil Young. (Young himself, meanwhile, was across the river playing a sold-out show at the University of Minnesota’s Northup Auditorium.) But even they were looking forward to the Owls taking the stage.
“They’re backstage presently, and they’re a wild bunch,” quipped Luoma midway through Elk’s set. “Like The Who in 1970.”
Before the Owls took the stage, the crowd was treated to a showing of the band’s music videos, plus some home stop-motion movies singer Brian Tighe made as a kid (mostly monsters and aliens eating things and getting eaten), and a video of Tighe’s mother singing the Beatles’ “Blackbird.”
The Owls played a 22-song set, including all of Daughters and Suns, plus samplings from Our Hopes and Dreams and a few newer tunes. Arguably the highlight of the evening came when longtime friend and former Owl Steve Ittner came onstage to perform his two songs: “Black Hands of Time” from Daughters and “Even Now” off of Hopes. The group has never sounded better in concert than that night. While the band will likely take a few months off to pursue personal projects (drummer John Jerry had an 8 a.m. German quiz the next morning), hopefully it won’t be too long before they migrate south and play another show in Iowa City. Or another three years before their next album.
See the photo gallery here.
this sounds really intriguing. i had it confused with Owls, the Joan of Arc/American Football spinoff from a number of years ago. i’d like to hear this.
well written sam, well written.