The much-anticipated grand re-opening of Columbia City Theater went off with a bang this weekend.
Capacity crowds enthusiastically took in two nights of great music, in a terrific new venue. Much care and love's been poured into the rejiggering of this venerable theater, and it shows. The entryway's still a bit sparse at this early stage, and the club doesn't have an enormous amount of restroom facilities (a bit of a problem between acts), but the Bourbon--CCT's main bar--is sleek, warm, and attractive, the drinks are first-rate, and the auditorium proper--with its warm red-bricked walls, ornate stage, and phenomenal acoustics and sightlines--is a thing of rich beauty.
Three of Seattle's finest hip-hop crews--Mash Hall, Cloud Nice, and DJ Suspense---turned the theater into, in talent booker Kevin Sur's words, "one big dance party" on Friday June 25. The Examiner was on hand for the second grand opening show Saturday June 26. That night, Kelli Schaefer, Drew Grow and the Pastors' Wives, and Grand Hallway all shone brightly on CCT's stage.
Schaefer opened the evening with a smouldering set deeply informed by country and gospel influences. Her newest recorded material sees her experimenting successfully with dance music and bossanova, but live she kept things spare and gracefully no-frills--Jeremiah Hayden's versatile drumming and the occasional backing vocal from Pastors' Wives bassist Kris Doty provided the only accompaniment to Schaefer's dusky vocals.
Drew Grow and the Pastors' Wives richly earned their rep as one of the most mesmerizing live acts on this side of the country (they hail from Portland, Oregon) with their transcendental set. It's a bit of a fool's game trying to describe a Wives live show: Grow hurtles himself into the music with an unforced abandon that can only be described as evangelical (he was raised in a devoutly Christian household). Eyes rolled back into his head like a holy man visited by God, singing songs that combine the experimental bent of the Flaming Lips with a hefty swig of homespun country/gospel moonshine, Grow proves to be an utterly magnetic frontman. The rest of the Pastors' Wives match his energy note-for-note, and true to their spiritual moniker they had the audience clapping along and transfixed.
Seattle's Grand Hallway have to be one of this region's most musically-ambitious acts, an honest-to-goodness orchestral pop band in the storied tradition of Love, the Zombies, and Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys. They pull off this ornate sound live with an exhuberant energy that never feels stuffy, and the entire band possesses more than enough skill to keep up with lead singer Tomo Nakayama's complex, gossamer-lovely compositions. Nakayama's schoolboy tenor held up beautifully in the concert setting, and when he began crooning "Elinor, Elinor," repeatedly during the gorgeous refrain of "Elinor with the Golden Hair," there wasn't an unplucked heartstring in the house.
If you're kicking yourself for having missed the opportunity to see great, free live music shows in this new venue, fret not: Columbia City Theater's continuing to bring the beautiful (free) noise next weekend, with a concert by The Maldives and Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers Friday July 2, and three of Seattle's heaviest hard rock bands (The Whoremoans, Chinese, and Lesbian) hitting the stage on Saturday July 3. Insert your own pun about pre-4th of July fireworks here.
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