Snake Charmer | Emily Haines

pic: 15MB Of Fame
There weren’t any snakes present at her show, but the sounds of Miz Haines and The Soft Skeleton could have charmed (depressed, some might say) anyone or anything.
This past Tuesday night, I went to see Emily Haines and The Soft Skeleton perform at the Hiro Ballroom (thank you for the seats); The Tall Firs from Brooklyn opened. The Tall Firs were super chill, setting the mood for the Skeleton’s set. This was the second solo performance I’ve seen by Emily (1st time was at Joe’s Pub back in September) and I was not disappointed. They played a great set with a small string section, Paul Dillon on bass, Scott Minor on drums, and Todor Kobakov on Macbook. Todor was responsible for putting together the Guy Maddin images that were shown in the background during the set.
Throughout the show Emily read select poems from her late dad’s (Paul Haines) book of poems, “Third World Two”, and playfully bantered with her captive audience. At one point during the encore, with The Tall Firs, she quipped that they were looking more like an American Broken Social Scene with all the people/guitars on stage (I counted 10 people).
The entire show was nearly perfect but with one exception (distraction): a girl that was clearly trashed crawled beneath the stage at the beginning of the show. Yes, you read correctly. She crawled UNDER the stage probably because she thought she would be closer to Emily that way. Thankfully she was removed by the second or third song; she could do a PSA for an anti-drugs campaign.
Anyway, go see Emily's friends (The Dears) this Friday (1/19) at Webster Hall. Buy tickets here.