It’s hard to believe it’s been about five years since I last saw Bear Hands. A travesty, really. But thank goodness they came back around! I needed to see their goodness again!
The venue was jarringly small. I am used to seeing these guys in smaller spaces, but I no sooner passed the ticket guy and the distance from me to the stage was probably the length of my living room! My friend and I hung back a little bit at first, but as it started to fill in, my view started to get blocked, so we stepped up a few paces and were about three rows from kissing the stage. The opening band, OK Cowgirl was a more acoustic set, but I did learn that was because of the five-piece band, only the lead singer and their bassist could get the time off of work to tour for three weeks. Crazy. So with that many members missing, they really did sound nice. I would be interested to hear the difference with all of the members someday.
Thankfully the set up in between was short. Did I mention this show started at 9pm? That typically wouldn’t be a huge deal except that this show was over two hours from where I live. I was thinking I’d end up back home in the 3 o’clock hour if they went too slow! But, as soon as Bear Hands took the stage, they ripped through their set in record time. There were very few breaks chatting with the crowd in between. Despite his oddities, Dylan did seem really happy to be performing, and in Ohio, no less! There was one less person on stage than I was used to seeing, but at their core, the band is a three-piece, so it was a more tight arrangement this time around.
The set could not have started off any stronger. Eight tracks in a row were hit after hit. I’m talking “Agora,” “Bonedigger,” “Mr. Radioactive,” “I Won’t Pay.” The list goes on! It’s times like these where I’m reminded of how awesome their kind of short discography is, and how much I truly like them. There was a chunk next of songs that I wasn’t as familiar with, but they still sounded incredible. We got “Blue Lips” towards the end of the set which was a bit of a surprise, and then they’d be fools not to end the evening with “2am” and “Giants.” If I lived in a perfect world, “Peacemaker” and “Like Me Like That” would have been on this set list, but I’ll take what I can get.
In fact, I’ll take anything they give me as long as they keep putting out records and don’t wait so long to tour near me in the future! I’m not sure where they’re at in the midst of this tour, but if you have the chance to see this band that should be way bigger than they are – do it! I promise you won’t regret it.
