I caught the Sunday night show & have mixed feelings.
Most new songs were good - some were even great: "At least that's what you said" was Crazy Horsesque.
But I walked away unsatisfied knowing just how good the show could have been. Like the review above, both AM & Summer Teeth were ignored (1 song from ST - after 2 hours). I appreciate the artistic growth & experimental bent, but not at the expense of ignoring a significant portion of their most likable catalog. Watching them was like seeing the evil alt-country Radiohead twin. I even like RH, but one's enough thanks.
And it's not like this tour is an abberation. I've seen them 4 times & each was like an exercise in contempt for all the older material.
It makes you appreciate a band and tour like the recent Pixies shows even more - all the best songs, all the time.
*********************
If you like A.M. check out Frogholler coming soon to Iota (Sat July 10). I doubt you'll see a better band in this genre this year. I caught them last eve in one of the strangest shows I've ever seen. It was at a coffeehouse (byob). No promotion. Just a stop over on the way to St Louis & Twangfest. More band members were on stage than actual attendees. Still, they put on one of my fav shows of the year. So much talent, & so likable.
other reviews:
"........their excellent new work Railings, simply the best band I've heard in years. Great songwriting, they are a deliriously entertaining live act, that truly create their own genre." - Andrew Aber The Village Voice
"If country music is about trying to lead an ordinary life in America's small towns and rural counties, it makes sense that alternative-country should be music about trying to lead a bohemian life in the same circumstances. Few acts pursue this latter strategy with as much devotion or with as much success as Frog Holler, a sextet from the area around Kutztown, Pa. ........ It reminds us that Frog Holler is one of our most underrated alt-country acts." - Geoffrey Himes The Washington Post
Frog Holler is fond of loud drums and Neil Young-worthy guitar solos. Its notoriously intense live show would fit right in at a Texas honky-tonk, a West Virginia hoedown, or at a noisy Philly club like the North Star." - Amy Phillips The Philadelphia Inquirer