The Choir

Item: Live at Cornerstone 2000
Author: Chris Estey

Live at Cornerstone 2000

(2000)

Reviewed by Chris Estey

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Label Galaxy 21 MusicHM Magazine #91September/October 2001

alternative rock dream pop shoegaze

I told Jason that it would be interesting to have me review this live album from this legendary alternative band, if only because I love their music but have never been able to get into them live. Thus, a challenge, a little potential conflict to enliven a reviewer's response. I chalked my disengagement at their live shows up to the "cerebral" band factor — I had them figured as the stay-home-with-headphones kinda group, and I just assumed their songs were hard to spark in a sweaty, crowded, out-in-public context.

Now I think it was just me at those live shows. This is also a band saliently focused on arousing an intimately receptive emotional state in the listener, and perhaps I was never "open" enough in those social settings to receive the power of their songs played out for me. (I think I was always fighting with girlfriends when I had a chance to see them live.) Because, as I listen to the transcendent rush of "Amazing" ("When I drag you through the dirt / let me kiss you where it hurts"), the bittersweet confession of "Love Your Mind" ("Will you take us both into / oblivion?"), or "Beautiful, Scandalous Night," the best praise song written in the 90s (penned by supernaturally-melodic lead singer Derri Daugherty and genius drummer Steve Hindalong) which finishes the set, I feel like I've really been missing out on something magical. Just listening to Dan Michaels' exquisite playing throughout these sixteen songs makes me wish I had been paying closer attention.

Live albums are usually superfluous, but like Springsteen's box set in the 80s, or the Who's Live at Leeds, this shows a spiritually-driven, literate, utterly passionate, and supremely musical band at the top of their form (and it helps that the production is clear and unobtrusive). Marc Byrd from Common Children helps out with the six string swirl, adding even more punch to an inspired set-list that's stacked from the Choir's many studio masterpieces. Heck, even the patter between the songs is funny. I would really recommend Live at Cornerstone 2000 for someone who hungers for a greatest hits of their work, or someone like me, who needed a little more convincing that this fire can be ignited away from the CD player.