Bootleg: The Softies @ The Milky Way, Boston, 10.20.00
What a wonderful show. Softies bootlegs are few and far between, and this 2000 show is only the second I’ve seen. Main Softie Rose Melberg remains an active artist, releasing Cast Away The Clouds in 2006, but given that she tours about as much as Leonard Cohen, we’re left with recordings like this one if we want to hear live takes on these songs — and what takes they are. Rose and Jen Sbragia’s treble-weighted electric guitars and crystalline harmonies intertwine beautifully on songs such as “Sleep Away Your Troubles” and serious best song ever candidate “You And Only You,” and while they also had a stronger catalog to draw from at this point, the two sound more confident and at ease than they do on the only other Softies bootleg I’ve heard, a show from March 1996. Another highlight: “As Skittish As Me,” a “The Best Days” b-side I didn’t know existed until now. There’s a little crowd noise to contend with, but with the band’s last album released just a month beforehand and their split imminent, this is an essential document of a group that left us far too soon. [Via Skatterbrain]
The Softies – 10.20.00, The Milky Way, Boston, Mass.
1. Pre-Show Banter
2. Holiday In Rhode Island
3. Sleep Away Your Troubles
4. Fragile, Don’t Crush
5. The Beginning Of The End
6. Snow Like This
7. Me And The Bees
8. You And Only You
9. Tracks and Tunnels
10. Skittish As Me
11. The Places We Go
12. Just A Day
13. The Best Days
Previously: The Ballad of Neko & Rose
Related: Bootlegs Archive
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