Anvil Everything: White Denim at Hotel Vegas
POSTED BY  AMW ON Jan 16, 2012

A friend of mine told me Friday night that he ran into White Denim's James Petralli at Sasquatch this summer, minutes after Wilco's Jeff Tweedy had told him that he'd enjoyed the group's performance. Petralli was in shock, my buddy told me. He didn't know exactly what to say. Wilco!

It's hard to tell if other artists respect White Denim as much as White Denim respects other artists, but the band's starting to earn nods from some pretty high company. Hand picked for a session by Jack White, the quartet rode into Nashville and produced April's Live at Third Man, the truest representation of the band's concert experience yet to go to press—D ripped to shreds by the foursome's fusion of psychedelic jazz and power soul. A few months later they'd get the call from Wilco, an invitation to open for them on twelve dates out west. 

Which is why we gathered at Hotel Vegas Friday night.

With the tour kickoff slated for Thursday, January 19 at Denver's Fillmore Auditorium, White Denim arranged a tune-up gig for a crowd of 160—two forty-five minute sets arranged specifically for the Wilco dates. 

Their decision to even hold this show is in and of itself a part of the band's appeal. Practice makes perfect, that's obvious, but any musician worth their salt will tell you that practice is nothing if that hard work falls on blind eyes. You've got to test the material, not just learn it, and despite the obviously hometown crowd (Want to get a good response to your trial runs, regardless? Be White Denim and play a small show in Austin.), there was this general feeling before the band took the stage that this wasn't going to be like every other rock-em-sock-em tidal wave of medleys and quick changes. Because that's not how you open for Wilco, and White Denim respects the method. 

The scene inside Hotel Vegas wasn't as intently focused as it'd've been had the show for a television taping, but you could sense the reverence of the occasion. Simply put, White Denim doesn't play to 160 people very often. It'll happen even less after this month. You got the feeling that everybody sort of knew that heading into show time. 

They opened with "Syncn," the cryptic closer from Fits, like hard rain rolling over a bed of rocks. Petralli worked the microphone slowly with his coated soul croon, "My heart feels a sinking" sung over and over as his longstanding rhythm section of bassist Steve Terebecki and drummer Josh Block led the crescendo.

A sudden stop and "I'd Have It Just The Way We Were," muffled and jazzed out the way it appears on Last Day of Summer. Petralli and fellow guitarist Austin Jenkins traded fuzzed solos like Weir and Garcia. "Regina Holding Hands" followed, packed with an extra pop having subbed the acoustic guitars on Fits for Jenkins and Petralli's hollow bodies, before "New Coat" and "If You're Changing" led into the evening's first medley, an "If You're Changing" ---> "Ieieie" ---> "WDA" ---> "Don't Look That Way At It" ---> "Paint It Silver" ride—White Denim's bread and butter. 

Levels were spot on throughout: you couldn't talk to your neighbor but you also weren't losing your ears. Doubled with the tight confines of Hotel Vegas' room, it was one of the most concentrated audiences I'd seen in months, an intently focused crowd on their toes waiting for the next thrill.

That came in the form of "Street Joy," which, maybe due to fatigue of the song itself, they've slowed down and syncopated into a song that those around me didn't first notice. "No Reason," the lone track pulled from this fall's Takes Place in Your Work Space EP, closed out a decidedly contained first set.

The evening's latter half opened with vintage White Denim muscle, Exposion's "Heart From Us All" winding its way through two minutes of buildup before Petralli's guitar shimmers out that great "She's steal the wind from the sail" lead-in. Then "It's Him," "Burnished," "At The Farm," "Say What You Want," River To Consider" and "Is and Is and Is," pulled off without a break like the Third Man 12", like our Ghost Room taping. There no stopping them now. 

Another medley followed in a flash: "Bess St.," "Anvil Everything," "I Start to Run," "Tony Fatti," Mirrored In Reverse" and "Drug": D's second half with flashes of Fits and Last Day of Summer. Then "Keys" before Petralli thanked the crowd (his earnestness when it comes to artist-audience relations cannot be understated) and ushered in "one more block of old material," an "All You Really Have To Do," "Mess Your Hair Up," "Let's Talk About It" thrill ride that expunged every hit list. 

Another thank you and they were off, off for Wilco and the west coast. Who knows the White Denim we'll have on the other end, but general understanding throughout Hotel Vegas was that we're probably done with that intimacy. Bands grow up and they get better and better, and if they're lucky they get cast under the wing of a band like Wilco, and then our little secret—our little treasure—can't exist in the capacity we've come to know them. 

It's hardly a knock against the band. In fact, it's high praise for a group of guys who deserve what they're getting and will hopefully get even more as the days roll on. In ten years, hopefully it'll mean something to say that we were there on the eve of their great leap.