Luna Pulls a Double Shift at Vivarium

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Timing, as they say, is everything. If you had planned to catch opener Sam Blasucci Thursday night at Vivarium you were out of luck but if you were a Luna fan, you won the lottery. And if you also happened to be a fan of the Velvet Underground, Luna’s show was Halley’s Comet.

Blasucci was a no-show which presented Luna the opportunity to play two sets.

Luna leader Dean Wareham began the band in 1991 on the heels of the breakup of the trio Galaxie 500. Plying the urban twin guitar-based dream jangle sound of Velvet Underground (Luna toured with the VU and Lou Reed; guitarist Sterling Morrison recorded with Luna), Television (TV’s Tom Verlaine collaborated with Luna) and The Feelies (Feelies drummer Stanley Demeski was an early Luna member), the quartet refined sonic bliss. 

Luna would open the reunited Velvets 1993 European tour.

With eight studio albums in the bag, Luna is no slouch when it comes to original material yet the setlist for chapter one on Thursday offered a pair of hints: covering Reed’s “New Sensations” and his VU-era classic “What Goes On.” The first set ended with what would ordinarily be a fine encore.

But fans attending the sold-out concert were in for more. 

More VU and Lou

The second set opened with bassist Britta Phillips taking the mic for “Femme Fatale.” She would trade verses with Wareham for “I’m Waiting for The Man” and Luna would end the evening with “Walk on the Wild Side” with Wareham blowing a mean kazoo solo in place of the original’s sax break.

For those of us who never got a chance to see the Velvets play live, Luna offered a glimpse.

Throughout the evening Luna would employ a hypnotic motorik rhythm with Phillips and drummer Lee Wall providing the horsepower. Wareham and guitarist Sean Eden had free reign to lock in or pursue solo explorations. Stretching out with “23 Minutes in Brussels,” Eden took the first solo adding spiderwebs and filigrees of sound. Things got serious mid-song when Wareham detuned his E string to D on the fly, ramping things up just a notch further.

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Luna offered a fine sampling of its own career yet the highlight was the anticipation through the night of more nods to the pioneering NYC group.

A few notes on the new venue. The first trip to see live music at Vivarium found an excellent sound mix thought out the room. Sightlines from the back of the crowd may have been a challenge but witnessing music this powerful in a small space was more than a fair tradeoff. As for the yakkers, talkers gonna talk and socializers gonna socialize.