Heather Browne doesn’t like Ike Reilly. She loves him.
She also loves live music performed in an intimate space, as this eloquent paragraph indicates:
A large part of the reason that I go to live music performances is because I am looking for some element of connection. I can sit at home in front of my stereo, listen to sterile studio recordings made in a far-away state that have been remastered and flawlessly captured. Sure, I hear a lot of good stuff that way . . . but I also feel a need for a visceral connection, an elemental thread of immediacy tying creator to listener in the same physical space. It’s why I prefer smaller venues – not from snobbery, or so I can tell you that I saw them way back when they were still playing the [insert tiny club name here]. It’s so I can see their eyes and feel their words, with flaws and all. I find myself feeling less than satisfied when I see a show at a huge venue on massive Jumbotron screens. The performers are tiny little ants a million miles away, and most of the action comes from the folks dancing around me. That’s fun, and I’ll do it, but that’s not the connection I really want with my music.
Heather goes on to describe Reilly’s show at the Larimer Lounge in Denver, where in a fiery moment he joined Tom Morello on stage (they both grew up in Libertyville, IL) for a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son”. Reilly also played an impromtu set in the beer garden post-show, after a fan asked to hear “Heroin,” a song he had not played earlier in the night.
It seems like it might be easy to confuse Libertyville with Belleville, IL? Belleville, near St. Louis, is hometown to Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar.