The Slip: 11/11 at the Independent, San Francisco, CA

Hot on the heels of their first studio album in 4 years, the Slip have hit the road on a cross-country tour. For the west coast leg they are headlining, with the Montreal group The Lovely Feathers opening, before hopping on with My Morning Jacket in Chicago. Last Saturday night the Slip stopped by one of their favorite haunts, San Francisco’s The Independent. The Slip have been playing the Independent for a couple years now and it is showing. They sold-out the club for the first time ever. To quote Vince Vaughn, “Yes, my boys are all grows up.”

The boys (I refer to the Slip as “the boys”. Some have used that nickname for the Dead or Phish. The Slip are “The Boys” in my musical world) took the nicely decorated stage (there were leaves all over the mic stands and Andrew had his PVC pipes set up and all disco'd out) and launched into "The Soft Machine". Well, technically they played the intro first, which is tracked as “First Panda in Space” on the new record, but I think of it as a part of “The Soft Machine". After a solid “Poor Boy” they played the first of 3 new songs that night. “Little Song” is a nice slow tune that evolves in to an indie-pop foot stomper.

The Slip have many east coast friends that have relocated to the west (myself included) and it’s always a big reunion when the boys come to town. Brad noted this by dedicating “Wine and White Soda” to “old friends”. One of my night's highlights was the new acoustic tune “Life in Disguise” which I last heard on a rooftop last summer (see my “funny story” sidenote in my Eisenhower review below). This song is even more amazing live with Marc and Andrew providing perfect backing textures before picking it up for the “name dropping” ending lines. The boys closed the show in the same manor they have been doing a lot these days. Although “Children of December” is one of my favorites, the band has beat this song to death. It’s unfortunate that a band with such a huge, diverse repertoire basically uses one song as a fall back crutch to close “big” shows.

The encore was the best part of the night. Andrew started it off with the intro to “Happy Snails” complete with the PVC pipes. After a nice but predictable rendition of the ballad “If One of Us Should Fall”, I could see Brad telling Marc and Andrew what to go into next during the end of the song. Within seconds they segued into a rediculous version of jazzy/space-funk instrumental “Get Me with Fuji”, which proves they don’t have to play the indie-rock card in order to bring the fucking house down.

I completely missed the Lovely Feathers set so I can’t say how they were. I heard they were loud and the keyboardist played the whole show in his boxers, which apparently was not a flattering look. Also, sorry for the lack of details to this review, but I was hanging with a lot of old friends and probably drank about 3 too many Whiskey and Coke doubles.


Set list: The Soft Machine, Poor Boy, Little Song, Airplane/Primitive, Even Rats, Wine and White Soda, Life in Disguise, There's a Lie, slow acoustic tune?, Moderate Threat > Cowboy Up > Paper Birds, Children of December

E: Happy Snails, If One of us Should Fall > Get Me with Fuji