{"id":864,"date":"2013-06-27T02:25:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-27T02:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=864"},"modified":"2026-06-27T02:27:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T02:27:35","slug":"modern-skirts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=864","title":{"rendered":"Modern Skirts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

June 2013, AthFest, Athens, Ga.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be up front about this \u2014 I loved Catalogue of Generous Men<\/em> and will never understand why the Modern Skirts moved away from the music that made it so wildly popular. OK, let me rephrase: I can understand why a band would want to try something new, but such an exploration doesn\u2019t mean abandoning the past \u2014 especially when it works.<\/p>\n

The Modern Skirts played its final show at AthFest\u2019s main stage in 2013 (they would come back), but the Skirts have been done for me for quite some time. I watched the 2005-06 Skirts heyday in person \u2014 with the sold out 40 Watt shows and national acclaim \u2014 and stayed with them through the solid yet uneven All of Us in Our Night<\/em>. But Happy 81<\/em> and Gramahawk<\/em> are a mystery to me, and always will be.<\/p>\n

On this night the Skirts spent the first half of the show exploring this latter part of its career, with looped electronics overpowering the overall sound. Clearly this is music the band revels in \u2014 lead singer Jay Gulley romped about the stage in a joyful trance, belting out selections such as \u201cJane Child\u201d with a wild fury. The crowd, which flooded well up Washington Street, was with them but only so much. The cheers after each song were elevated but tempered, it was a crowd waiting for something.<\/p>\n

That something came with \u201cNY Song,\u201d the opening track on Catalogue<\/em> and one of the best songs to come out of the aughts. The crowd was on the move, clapping and singing along with a fervid pitch in a collective happy sigh \u2014 this is what we came for. Following up with \u201cMy Lost Soprano\u201d moved the show into a different, familiar realm. It was clear to me the first half of the show was for the band and the second half was for the audience.<\/p>\n

Why do I say that? Before playing the excellent \u201cSave Me,\u201d Jo Jo Glidewell admitted it was a song the band never played and wasn\u2019t sure why. Playing it as he did was a tip of a hat to the crowd, which hung on every piano note. \u201cPasadena\u201d and the encore ending \u201cSeptember Days\u201d would prove the show\u2019s ultimate worth \u2014 everyone would get what they want.<\/p>\n

If one knew nothing of the Skirts and listened but didn\u2019t watch the show, they\u2019d leave thinking it was two different bands. And perhaps that\u2019s what the Skirts wanted \u2014 it wasn\u2019t a band seeking comfort but instead wanted to blaze new paths. I get that, but I liked the comfort, as did many others. All in all, it was a good 10-year run by an important Athens band, and not many bands can say that. Playing in front of a hometown crowd in the downtown city streets was a perfect ending, for this band a lasting memory:<\/p>\n

Take me downtown, bring me to life\/and when you\u2019re down, there will be life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June 2013, AthFest, Athens, Ga. I\u2019ll be up front about this \u2014 I loved Catalogue of Generous Men and will never understand why the Modern Skirts moved away from the music that made it so wildly popular. OK, let me rephrase: I can understand why a band would want to try something new, but such […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":487,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[112,118],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-athfest","tag-modern-skirts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":865,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions\/865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}