The Church live @ First Avenue, Minneapolis MN (June 30th, 2024 ) [complete show]

The Church live @ First Avenue, Minneapolis MN (June 30th, 2024)
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I remember seeing the video for The Church's 'Constant in Opal' sometime in 1986 or so.
• The Church - Constant ... . The E-bowed guitar, that bassline, that voice, it just grabbed me. But as a broke teenager, it wasn't until 'Under the Milky Way' and 'Starfish' came out in 1988 that the band took over my life in that final year of high school. I still remember the thrill of hearing 'Blood Money' when it was used as background music on Miami Vice. When the earlier albums started getting reissued in Canada in the early 90's, I quickly devoured those. Finally, my own copy of 'Constant in Opal', on cassette.
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And of course, the band had that stupendous run of albums to close out the century. I'm not going to lie. As my musical tastes (de)evolved over time and I became more interested in lo-fi indie bands, The Church maybe didn't figure as prominently in my playlist as before. Especially as some of the original members of the band started dropping out of the picture. Still, Steve Kilbey's songwriting and bass playing remain among my favorite, and I've always had a soft spot for the band. Steve's voice almost has this ASMR effect on me. And yet after all these years, my first chance to actually see them live did not materialize until a couple of years ago, when they played at the Cruel World festival in Pasadena. And pro-tip, when attending a festival always check to see if any of the bands will be playing shows pre- or post-festival. I got lucky and got to see the band at the fabulous Pappy and Harriet's Pioneer Town the day before the festival. Do yourself a fave, do a google search for Pappy and Harriet's. And if you ever get a chance to see a show there, take it. It's a couple hours from Las Vegas and Los Angeles at the edge of Joshua Tree National Park.
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When a tour with The Afghan Whigs was announced for the spring/summer of 2024, I knew I had to be there. And seeing the bands at the legendary First Avenue in Minneapolis only added to the experience. There is no set list that could possibly do justice to what I'd love to hear from The Church. Not after all these years. I've been collecting bootlegs for the past 30 years and one of my very favorites is a radio broadcast of a show the band played at the Grand Ballroom at Navy Pier in Chicago in 1990. To this day, any time I'm in Chicago, I think of that show. Ah, to hear 'North, South, East, and West', or 'Transient', 'Ripple' or (gasp!) 'Constant in Opal'.
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Nonetheless, June 30th's triple bill with Ed Harcourt and The Afghan Whigs was special in every sense of the word. When the tour was first announced, I didn't necessarily think that the bands were a natural fit to play together, only I had no idea that Steve Kilbey and Greg Dulli had worked together. Most in the crowd were excited to see all bands, myself included. The band was in fine form, Steve Kilbey is absolutely mesmerizing. The current members of the band are uniformly excellent. Hearing 'Myrrh' and 'Metropolis' right off the hop was amazing. 'Reptile', and 'Under the Milky Way' are still so good after all these years. Among more recent offerings, I loved hearing 'The Hypnogogue', 'C'est la Vie', and 'Antartica'. And the epic version of 'You Took' to close out the evening was simply superb...a shout out goes to Anne, who shared the railing up front with me. Your company and conversation made for an even lovelier evening.
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ps. please go out and see these bands and support them by purchasing their merch!!!
pps. One little thing...I'm no lighting design guy but the lighting at the show was a bit of a mess. At times the wash of blue/pink lights made the band disappear altogether and I was simply hoping that the band might be in frame! I thought that once I applied color correction on the footage it would get much better but I just couldn't find the proper color adjustments to make it so, sorry about that. It's too bad because on a song like 'Grind' (1:03:45), this contrast between terrible and better lighting was so plainly obvious...
The Set List
00:10 Myrrh
05:15 Metropolis
10:56 The Hypnogogue
18:24 C'est la vie
24:05 No Other You
28:39 An Interlude
35:13 Flickering Lights
40:27 Reptile
47:00 Antartica
54:11 Realm of Minor Angels
58:05 Albert Ross
1:02:25 Grind
1:09:28 Under the Milky Way
1:15:54 Second Bridge
Encore:
1:22:25 Last Melody
1:24:55 You Took

[@annethompson1980]

There is also a really nice write up on The Church fan page.

[@annethompson1980]

Hahaha. Sorry for the background squealing!