Zach and I went to see Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco) at Cain’s Ballroom on Wednesday. The first half of his set consisted of songs from his new band with his son Spencer, and the second half was mostly acoustic versions of Wilco songs. Tweedy has a voice like melted butter (earth balance!) and an incredible stage presence, and the two dudes who were there playing guitar with him are amazing. Also, I found out that he has a book of poetry called Animal Head, and you better believe I swooped that up.

Anyway, I’m not really here to talk about Jeff Tweedy, as great as he was. I want to talk about the opening band, Handsome Family. It is very rare when you go to a show and aren’t eager for the opening band to finish their set, but that’s what happened. Handsome Family is a pretty influential band (enough so that Andrew Bird just released a whole covers album of just their songs), and their song  is the theme song for True Blood. They are a married couple and you can tell that they have some kind of kinetic energy because their onstage banter and their singing and playing are perfect. They remind me a lot of Murder by Death, and I’d venture to guess that MBD is influenced greatly by them. 

My favorite song of theirs is “So Much Wine, Merry Christmas.” Check it out, and then check out Andrew Bird’s cover of the same song (and cry).