The Audible Snail writesShow Notes: Califone “turtle eggs/an optimist” at Lincoln Hall (2/1/14)

Southwest soundscapes traverse the Midwest, Califone graced Chicago’s Lincoln Hall stage on Saturday, February 1st during the final show on their “turtle eggs/an optimist” tour, named after the final song on their 2013 release, Stitches. With opening act William Tyler, Tim Rutili and ensemble, plucked from the heartstrings that saddle back into a city the band once called home, opened and closed the evening with collective sound that can only be gleaned from newfound geography.

Tyler opened the evening with solo electric precision, howling, glorious, instrumental light—almost southern and blue grass in nature. Hailing from the Northwest, the first couple songs —“Last Residents of West Fall” and “Can’t Go Home”—are ballads to his hometown in eastern Oregon, Americana at its contemporary finest. A perfect introduction to Califone.

With minimal vocals and a series of twangs mixed with hollow bell-type sounds, Califone carefully drew in the audience during its first range of sounds. “Thank you for the snow,” Rutili softly noted between songs, a testament to travel and the deep Chicago February, as the jams promised both the magic of winter’s realm and a familiar Califone rattle reset in a hot southwest summer.

Old songs speckled the stage before the band wound into new tracks from Stiches. The familiar and heartbreaking “Don’t Let Me Die Nervous” from Sometimes Good Weather Follows Bad People, followed by “All My Friends Are Funeral Singers,” sobered the music hall before the band eased into new terrain.

A testament to Califone’s fluidity, it is an impressive feat when a band can present new music alongside old with such fluidity, without losing the audience in the transition. Consistent orchestration and craftsmanship is what propels this band forward and grounds the music right back into the earth.

The band performed “Michigan Girls” and the ever-ethereal “The Orchids” in a slightly slower tempo, as the former bled into the latter, resulting in a more calculated version of “The Orchids.” More methodic than contemplative, the toned down version somehow waned the song’s familiar urgency, as the lackadaisical pace of newer songs from Stitches swarmed around it.

The last time I saw Califone was the opening performance of All My Friends Are Funeral Singers at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in October 2009. The band signed my newly bought record that night with the inscription: First night jitters. It is no surprise, then, that Rutili confessed to nervousness embarking the stage the last night of the band’s Stitches tour. The sweetness and awkwardness grew mid-set when he apologized to the audience for his “unprofessional” manner as he restrung a guitar: “Stringing a guitar in front of an audience is like taking a crap in front of people.”

In rock show tradition, William Tyler came back to the stage to accompany the band during the final songs before the encore, inviting the two drummers to pound tribal percussion during “A Thin Skin of Bullfight Dust” and “Frosted Lips.” A jam session not like any other, making toes and hips want to dance.

The titles to all of these songs composed for futuristic poet hearts. The encore’s “Evidence” and the dreamy, mesmerizing cradle of “Fisherman’s Wife” ended Califone’s Stitches tour across the plains, singing the Midwest to sleep.