Ty Segall @ The Hi-Tone | 01.27.13
Ty Segall has become one of the most prolific young musicians on the scene, having released more material in the last two years than most blog darlings do in their whole career. No Joke. Pondering this as I waited in line at the Hi-Tone in Memphis, it crossed my mind that you could be a rather sincere fan of Ty Segall and still bare witness to a performance of his that consisted of maybe a few songs that you actually knew, and that it wouldn’t exactly be a bad thing. Such is the power of Ty Segall.
Moving Finger and Ex-Cult warmed up the crowd just fine, but the party pit didn’t really start moving until Ty and his band hit the stage. Starting out with “Sinner”, bystanders to were already getting pushed off balance and knocked around by those shaking out their beers and removing their shirts, long past the point of sobriety where they might realize the possible cliches of their actions. I don’t think I lasted the entirety of the first song at the stage, not wanting to get wacked around any more than I had already or have anything dumb happen to my camera equipment. I found refuge on the side, with one foot on the stage and the other on a monitor. Not a great angle, but it worked.
From there it was easy to see that the main room of the Hi-Tone had reached near capacity, if the heat and the humidity didn’t already suggest such a thing. Ty Segall and his band are tight, but still a bit sloppy when it needs to happen. Switching out between a Fender Mustang and an old, white Hagstrom II, Ty’s reverb-saturated buzzsaw tones cut well and loud out his silverface Fender Super and Quad Reverbs. This was well complimented by Mikal Cronin’s driving bass and Charles Moothart’s rhythm guitar. This created a sharp, coherent sound that hinted that it could go off in any number of directions if needed. Drummer Emily Rose Epstein kept her eye on Segall, as to not miss any signals. You could feel yourself getting filthier and filthier as the evening went, and caring was just a moment in time.
It didn’t leave me that in a shooting situation like this that I needed as much coverage as I could get, and I slowly made my way to one of the few elevated spots in the room. It still wasn’t much of an angle, but from there I could hear the mix better and get some wide shots. After getting some room shots I stuck mostly to my Edge 80, as Ty and his band made way through “Oh, Mary”, a few tracks off of Goodbye Bread, as well as some tunes that were mostly outside of my knowledge. The encore involved Segall leading his band through some songs that he claimed “They only sorta knew.” which resulted in fast, sloppy expressions of music that ended after half a minute or so, one of which reached a chorus about motherfuckers at guitar shops or something along those lines. As a former Guitar Center employee, this touched a special spot.
Wisely, this ended before the momentum of the spectacle dwindled. Ty thanked the crowd before disappearing into it and then… well, it was over. The house lights came on, I found my friends and traveled home, my knee and back so sore and beaten they kept me from sleeping on the long drive on I-55.
See the rest of the photos from Ty Segall’s performance at the Hi-Tone in Memphis here.
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