X Plays "Wild Gift" at City Winery

Night two of four.

Not in the Face from Austin opened again. Exene sang one song with them again, and was great. And they finished their set with false endings on four of their last five songs, demolishing some unwritten rule for opening bands.

While Los Angeles will always be my favorite X album, tonight was a much better show. The house sound was great and the stage sound seemed to be less bothersome for the band, especially Exene. They were again augmented by multi-instrumentalist Michael Kilpatrick, who first joined on maracas during "Adult Books" and later played a lot of spirited rhythm guitar. They ripped through Wild Gift–"Universal Corner" and "White Girl" oh my–and then took a short break.

A highlight of the second set for me was the lovely and forlorn, downtempo "Dancing with Tears in my Eyes." After that, the set ramped up and took off, and for the first time I've seen, people were dancing at City Winery. A black shirted employee tried to put a damper on it, but these old people would not be denied their twenty square feet of dancing space stage right. By the end of the set, Exene had turned her mic to that corner and was singing just to them. It occurred to me last night that maybe X were doing these seated gigs to protect their aging fans, and themselves from liability, from broken hips. I think everyone made it out in one piece.

The set really exploded with last night's closer, their cover of The Doors' "Soul Kitchen.". They received a raucous standing ovation, as opposed to Tuesday's polite standing ovation. They returned and attacked "Drunk in My Past," "Blue Spark," and "Because I Do," and I thought the yelling was loud enough to get them back out, but it was not to be.

Ready for tonight's Under the Big Black Sun.

Setlist:

Wild Gift
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Your Phone’s Off the Hook But You’re Not
We're Having Much More Fun
Breathless
Dancing with Tears in My Eyes
I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts
How I Learned My Lesson
Nausea
Sugarlight
Motel Room in My Bed
Soul Kitchen
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Drunk in My Past
Blue Spark
Because I Do