Review: Tea Leaf Green, Park West, 3/5/09

I went to go see Tea Leaf Green at the Park West tonight. I must say that the Park West is one of my favorite venues here in Chicago and I love it when bands play there. It's pretty close to my house too, which is an added bonus.

I got to the show a bit early and saw the opening act finishing up, a band called Outformation. They weren't terrible, but weren't great either. I wouldn't go out of my way to see them again, but as far as openers go I've seen much worse. As the crew was setting up TLG's gear I went and parked myself right in front of the stage, in front of the bass rig. Fortunately, I came prepared for standing that close and had ear plugs. The only disadvantage to ear plugs is that they cut out a lot of the higher frequencies, but they save your hearing and really help bring out the bass. And as a bass player by trade, that's what I pay attention to the most.

TLG's set was solid. Nothing spectacular, but it certainly wasn't terrible. Their bass player, Reed Mathis, has some real chops and was throwing in some cool riffs and ad-libs during the first set. However, as the show progressed the amount of bass fireworks really declined. For almost the entire second set he played just straight, chugging root notes the whole time. The other thing that annoyed me after a while was the lack of dynamics. It seems like the bassist wasn't even listening to the rest of the band. As the rest of the group shifted through various passages with different feels, Mathis just kept playing the same pulsing bassline. Now, a bassist should always be able to hold a solid groove and set the foundation, but for a group that claims to be a jam band, or at least is lumped into that genre, there was very little jamming on the bass. Honestly, it got to be really boring and repetitive. The rest of the band sounded great, they fed off of each other an seemed to push each other at various points. I'm not uber-familiar with their entire catalog, but they played a really enjoyable set. I'd probably go see them again, but I won't sit that close again. I'd rather get a wider range of the band's sound since the bass isn't doing much.