8th
The Night Yo La Tengo Performed A Seinfeld Episode
This is not a fib - I was there too, marking the first (and presumably, last) time I have ever seen Yo La Tengo get booed.
Even though I knew that the novelty factor would wane after 10 mins or so, I was firmly in the “into it” camp - it was uncanny how much Ira nailed the delivery of his character (and to a lesser but still impressive extent, James). Frankly, I admire them for sticking with it - the band had clearly put a long time into practicing their lines and it would have somehow felt like a defeat to wind it down early.
But. While YLT has certainly earned enough goodwill to do pretty much whatever they want, I too was baffled and disappointed by the extended intermission that followed. Given that there was an extremely long and involved break/tuning session after the opening act (the surprisingly great William Tyler), and given that the instruments were left untouched during the first set, it was extremely off-putting to suffer through another long break (and for some reason, more tuning). Simply put, it just didn’t feel very Yo La Tengo-y, especially given the ticket price.
But yeah, once back onstage, they killed it. Perhaps in a nod to the previous 50 minutes, they launched into a percussion-heavy rendition of “The Room Got Heavy” and it was all jams from there. I bought a coffee mug.
