{"id":334,"date":"2023-10-01T23:41:35","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T03:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arouseosu.wordpress.com\/?p=334"},"modified":"2025-02-05T13:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T18:58:09","slug":"wednesday-at-ace-of-cups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/2023\/10\/01\/wednesday-at-ace-of-cups\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday at Ace of Cups"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Words by Rohan Rindani \/\/ Photos by Nick Allen<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>JUNE 30 &#8211; Asheville band Wednesday is at the end of a 10 week tour, and openers Tenci want you to know they\u2019re about to give it their all \u2013 but not before a set from the Chicago folk group blows the audience away. Frontwoman Jess Shoman\u2019s operatic, birdlike vocals coalesce with pastoral guitar, saxophone, and flute to create an atmosphere that sucks the air out of the room for the entirety of their half hour stage time. In between short bursts of indie rock soundscapes, the band takes turns telling tour stories \u2013 Larry the \u201csuper woke\u201d BP worker gets almost no reaction out of the crowd, prompting Shoman to comment on our silence. An audience member yells \u201cYour guitar\u2019s so cute!\u201d. \u201cThanks, I bejeweled it!\u201d she says, holding it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/arouseosu.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/img_9507.jpg?w=683\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-338\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>After a wonderful warmup set, Wednesday comes out with a surprise: it\u2019s drummer Alan Miller\u2019s birthday, and he gets to pick the setlist tonight. Despite the tour being in support of the new record <em>Rat Saw God<\/em>, Miller picks a good mix of tracks from across the band\u2019s discography. Starting with tracks from 2021\u2019s <em>Twin Plagues<\/em>, the roughly hour-long setlist winds through the five years of the band&#8217;s history before closing on the panoramic new single \u201cBull Believer\u201d. Pedal steel virtuoso Xandy Chelmis ripped solo after solo while bassist and guitarist Ethan Baechtoid and MJ Lenderman demonstrated wonderful interplay, letting frontwoman Karly Hartzmann shine as the focal point of her songwriting. Wednesday builds songs around the simple things: sex stores, Mortal Kombat, fire departments, Narcan. Despite all the window dressing, these songs are here to tell a real story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/arouseosu.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/img_9436.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-339\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The atmosphere in the room is electric. A group of friends celebrating a birthday demand to crowdsurf to every song, and even in between some. Karly seems to think this is the funniest thing that\u2019s happened all tour, and even asks them why they\u2019re getting so excited. The answer, of course, is the band themselves, but with the shoegazing stage presence and conversational crowdwork between songs, it\u2019s hard to tell if they\u2019re aware of the effect they\u2019re having on the room. Wednesday are natural born players, and even at the end of a season long tour, they manage to keep the air sucked out of a venue for as long as they\u2019d like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Rat Saw God<\/em> is out now via Dead Oceans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Words by Rohan Rindani \/\/ Photos by Nick Allen JUNE 30 &#8211; Asheville band Wednesday is at the end of a 10 week tour, and openers Tenci want you to know they\u2019re about to give it their all \u2013 but not before a set from the Chicago folk group blows the audience away. Frontwoman Jess [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1593,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/1593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}