Now Hear This

Calexico delivered a fabulous set at The Fillmore Sunday night dominated by songs from the new record Carried To Dust.  I’m sure Joey Burns and John Convertino are just as tired of the term “return to form” as Mike Mills and his compatriots in R.E.M. I don’t know what everyone’s’ prattling on about. I loved Garden Ruin and thought Sunday’s version of ‘Roka’ was good enough to hope for more off that record. From the limited listens I’ve been able to give the new album I agree it feels more like their breakthrough Feast Of Wire (which provided five songs to the set) but implying Garden Ruin was a misstep does it a grave disservice. Of course when all is said & done Calexico is first and foremost a live band so the fact that they only played one song from Garden Ruin gives NHT the impression that John & Joey aren’t very fond of that record either.

Anyway, below is my attempt at reconstructing Sunday’s show. Unless otherwise noted  this is from their show at The Fillmore back on 7/16/04 (at least it’s the same room). I’ve included a few bonuses since I don’t have a recording of Calexico doing the fantastic Jorge Ben cover that Jairo Zavala sang or the new song my old friends from Chico Barbara and Terry Manning came out to play (they do a great version of The Handsome Family’s ‘Too Much Wine’ too BTW).

Calexico at The Fillmore 9/28/08 (reconstructed)

Gypsy’s Curse #

Roka #

Bend To The Road *

Across The Wire

Man Made Lake * @

Sister City (improvised song?)

Sunken Waltz

Writer’s Minor Holiday *

El Gatillo (Trigger Revisited) *

Inspiracion *

Two Silver Trees *

Quattro (World Drifts In)

Slowness *

Alone Again Or (Love cover)

The News About William *

Not Even Stevie Nicks

Victor Jara’s Hands*

Crystal Frontier

—encore—

Minas de Cobre

Better by Bounds (featuring Barbara & Terry Manning)

Fractured Air (Tornado Watch) *

Comanche (Jorge Ben cover)

Jesus And Tequila (Minutemen cover)

Guero Canelo

* – These are all new songs. If you want to hear ‘em buy the new record here.

# – recorded in someone’s living room in front of about 100 people in Berlin on 4/1/06 (I kid you not & that’s all I know about this recording)

@ – from a Morning Becomes Eclectic session circa 2002

Bonus Tracks

Alone & Forsaken (Hank Williams cover with Neko Case from the same ’04 Fillmore show)

Comanche (from the debut record from Jairo Zavala’s regular band Depedro, based in Madrid)

All Tomorrows Parties (Velvet Underground cover with Iron & Wine from the 9:30 Club in DC on 11/30/05 while touring to support their brilliant collaboration In The Reins)

Setlist courtesy of the Calexico setlist archive. BTW: Calexico’s very taper friendly. If you want more live recordings check out the Internet Archives for shows posted by fans and the band themselves