YO LA TENGO
Maxwell’s (Hoboken, NJ)
12/08/07

And on the 5th night of Hannukah my true love gave to me… The best show I have seen in quite possibly the last decade. "Why?" you ask. Because it was magical. F-ing magical.

Every year during Hanukkah, Yo La Tengo do 8 nights of shows in their hometown of Hoboken, NJ at an awesome little club called Maxwell's. I happened to be in New York visiting a friend for her 30th birthday during Hanukkah this year, so another friend and I thought we'd take our chances by heading down to the already sold out Yo La Tengo show and seeing if luck was on our side.

Turned out that more than luck was on our side. It was the best Hanukkah miracle since the oil burned for seven days & eight nights. For me, being Jewish, it was like destiny.

As if getting to see Yo La Tengo in their hometown wouldn't have been amazing enough, the night had many treats in store.

To begin with, after watching a band called Dew Claw play a few songs, who should happen to grace the stage but my favorite of favorites, one Ms. Sarah Vowell . If you have never read any of Ms. Vowell's books or essays you are doing yourself a tremendous disservice. She is amazing to say the least. Last April I saw her do a reading with David Sedaris and that was pretty stellar.  But, seeing her read one of my all-time favorite stories (about cartographer Charles Preuss) in a club smaller than Bottom of the Hill was mind blowing.

But that was just the beginning. After Sarah Vowell's reading, the audience was treated to a daily Kabala lesson from Ira's “Aunt Judith" – who was actually Amy Poehler in disguise! I have loved Amy Poehler since the Upright Citizen's Brigade, so I nearly crapped myself with excitement when she took the stage. Fortunately for everyone involved I didn't. And, no pun intended, holy shit was she hilarious. Sadly it wasn't until she was a minute or so into her reading that I remembered I had my camera on me, but I was able to catch much of the hilarity on video.

Click To Play Jen's Video of Amy Poehler as Ira's Aunt Judith

Lastly (or so we thought), out came Yo La Tengo . Their set spanned the band's 20 year history and every song sounded as fresh and new as if it were written yesterday. Yo La Tengo are such a mesmerizing band, you have to see them play live if you want your life to have any meaning. That's a fact.

As if seeing Yo La Tengo play in their  hometown wasn't amazing enough, as if seeing Amy Poehler and Sarah Vowell wasn't enough, the night was capped off by an encore set which included one Mr. Alex Chilton taking over lead vocals and playing guitar. They did covers ranging from "Oogum Boogum," "Let Me Get Close to You," and "Government Center" to the crowd favorite "Femme Fatale." The crowd swayed in awe and delight and everyone filed out of the club happier than words could have described.

Click To Play Jen's Video of Alex Chilton playing with Yo La Tengo

It was kind of like seeing god that night - and when I say kind of, I mean exactly.

[Jen Chochinov]