mission freak!

Like opening the smallest presents first, you’ve seen some pretty sweet stuff, but now you’re really looking for the big ones. Fortunately for you, our next four favorite concerts still await you beneath the tree. Missed the first four? Check them out right here. Check back tomorrow for our two favorite concerts of the year, and then we’ll be giving you the rundown on the year’s best albums all this week.

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6. Bound Stems w. David Karsten Daniels :: Picador 3/31/07
Saturday afternoon: a tornado warning swept through Iowa City. A full hour of torrential rain soaked the sidewalks and lawns of the town. I walked down Linn Street en route to the Picador and the wind shattered my umbrella. Weather be damned, I wasn’t going to miss out on a late afternoon of wonderful music. As David Karsten Daniels and his magical band took the stage, the climate pulled back her gloomy talons and cast a different picture for us: a rainbow crossed over Iowa City and the trees soaked in the moisture of the downpour, their leaves turning a magnificent green. Daniels, for his part, lilted the audience with his hushed, warm delivery before pushing us into sonic combustions of drums, guitars, and voices a-wailing. The Bound Stems, purveyors of “pretty complex music”, followed. Their show was more of an intimate parade than a straightforward performance of rock songs. They shook their bodies and instruments like a band of sprites and elves getting their indie-rock kicks: start-stop dynamics, energetic hand claps, and fits of joyous shouting. We all danced and the weather god, she smiled. (Andre)

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5. Cartright w. These United States, Adam Arcuragi, Rykarda Parasol :: Yacht Club 3/28/07
On this, the first night of the 2007 Mission Creek Festival, a bill of relative unknowns would build into one of the more memorable shows of the year. Rykarda Parasol rolled into town and serenaded us with her solo acoustic material. Adam Arcuragi did likewise, and both left us struck by their infinitely different takes on the most populist form of songwriting. These United States, aka Jesse Elliot, is a former Iowa City resident whose laidback, bohemian folk was both rousing and comforting. Jesse is the quintessential troubadour, with far too much enthusiasm for the world than should be contained in one individual, which invariably spills over into his well-spun narratives. And then, Cartright. No number of listens to their stellar EP, A Tall Tale Comes of Age could have prepared us for the live Cartright experience. Never before has a band so thoroughly folky rattled the walls of a venue to its core. The conjure up Dust Bowl music with post-apocalyptic furor. A barn-burner, indeed, but we made it out alive. (Todd)

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4. Grizzly Bear :: Picador 2/11/07
Back in the middle of a cold February, when grizzly bears all over North America were hibernating and shit, the band Grizzly Bear was thawing hearts and melting faces on tour. Grizzly Bear don’t just trot out their studio-perfect sound when playing live, songs are tweaked, expanded, distorted, and in some cases totally rearranged. Touring in support of 2006’s fantastic Yellow House (a “grower” if there ever was one), they nailed “Knife,” “Colorado,” and my personal favorite “On A Neck, A Spit.” But in what was the surprise of the night, they went back into the Spector era with a cover of The Crystals’ “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss),” which would soon end up on their Daytrotter Session. Ed Droste, openly gay front man of the band, said thanks for indulging him when the song was over, but the indulgence was all ours. Taking that much-maligned anti-feminist ballad and turning it into something so tender was enough to get any hibernating heart beat to go all a-flutter. (Craig)

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3. The Thermals :: Picador 3/19/07
Thermals Ear [ther*mulz*eer] (n.): a medical condition characterized by decreased auditory sensitivity and an incessant hum in one or both ears. Known causes: attending a concert featuring Portland-based power-punkers “The Thermals”. If you were among the hundreds infected with Thermals Ear this past March at the Picador, consider yourself lucky to have been a part of one of the tightest, most energetic, and certainly loudest shows to hit Iowa City in 2007. The annoying buzz eventually faded, but the memories of rocking out to songs like “Here’s Your Future” and “A Pillar of Salt” never will. (Scott)