Yo La Tengo played Bowery Ballroom – 12/21
Indie rock stalwarts Yo La Tengo wrapped up their annual Hanukkah residency at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom last month with surprise openers Florry and Jon Benjamin.
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Way back when the world of indie rock was first opening up to me, Yo La Tengo’s annual run of Hanukkah shows at the now-shuttered Hoboken haunt Maxwell’s were an aspirational thing. I’d feverishly await the details of each night’s surprise guest lineup and download every NYCTaper crowd recording I could get my hands on, dreaming of being there in person instead of doing my math homework or whatever.
A decade and a half later, I feel very grateful that not only are YLT still carrying on the tradition at the Bowery, but that it’s actually quite feasible for me to make it there once or twice a year. The energy of these gigs is always something special – the myriad guests clearly thrilled to be there, the fans who’ve staked out their spots night after night and year after year taking on a familial bond, and the proceeds benefitting handpicked causes (like this night’s New York Immigration Coalition). It really is the feel-good event of the season for aging devotees of the Matador Records catalog (complimentary).
This year (as with last), I checked in for the final night of the run, which featured Philly’s Florry and comedian/voice actor Jon Benjamin as support. Florry proclaimed it a dream of theirs to open one of these shows, and clearly had the time of their lives ripping through an exuberant set of alt-country rockers. They weren’t the biggest-name surprise opener of the week (between Lucinda Williams, Built to Spill, Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Jeff Tweedy, some stiff competition this year), but I can’t imagine many came away from their set disappointed.
Benjamin (of Archer and Bob’s Burgers fame) took the stage for the evening’s comedy portion with an immediate admission that he doesn’t really do comedy anymore, but he’s genuinely the kind of performer who could recite the phonebook and make it entertaining. A good portion of his set was dedicated to a dramatic reading of the fraught interpersonal history of a central Massachusetts bar band, and for better or worse that’s some content aimed directly at me.
For YLT’s headlining set, a three-piece horn section sat in for a number of early set highlights (“Moby Octopad,” “Mr. Tough,” the only such arrangement I’ve ever heard for “Everyday”), before fiddle players Stephanie Coleman and Peter Stampfel (of the Holy Modal Rounders) joined in for a few songs in tribute to the late folksinger Michael Hurley. Given the final-night, no-repeats parameters of the show, process of elimination indicated fan-favorites “Cherry Chapstick” and a set-closing “Blue Line Swinger” would probably make appearances, and there were surely no complaints when they did.
For the evening’s extended encore (which had featured everyone from Lenny Kaye and The National’s Matt Berninger to Norah Jones earlier in the week). Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles joined in for a Dylan tune, Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” and a couple of her own hits. And to round it all out, per tradition, Band Mom Marilyn Kaplan gave her rendition of the Anita Bryant classic “My Little Corner of the World” (with a bonus run through the Rounders’ “Griselda,” co-sung by Stampfel).
So in short…a lot happened by the time Hanukkah Residency 2k25 wrapped up, well after midnight. The sheer musical range, the guest connections, the immensely deep well of covers…all pure YLT. The trio are simply a musical universe unto themselves, and there’s no better way to experience the magic of that than rolling up to one of these yearly shows and taking whatever ride they’ve got planned – cosmic jazz, noise freakouts, folk jams, drone symphonies, ’80s new-wave hits and a thousand other possibilities are on the table. I’m already marking the dates for next year.
