Of course the mood was that of a hundred jittery fans trying to play it cool. Enhancing the celebratory vibes was an additional merch booth for the Empty Bottle’s 33 ⅓ concert series, ringing in the venue’s anniversary, of which Cindy Lee’s show was a part of. Two openers tapped into the alternate styles of Lee to smooth out the transition of the evening. Accessory XL straddled the stage as a nine-piece supergroup spotlighting Chicago’s indie scene. Members of Dehd, Meat Wave, Matchess, Deeper, Ulna, Desert Liminal, and more linked up for an intuitive jam session. In performance, Accessory XL channeled the Velvet Underground reinterpreting Broken Social Scene: extended outro jams, mumbling into pickups, doubling down on hearty melodies.
Afterwards, Canadian downtempo duo Freak Heat Waves pulled a projector screen down from the ceiling and got to work swirling house, psych-rock, dub, and trip-hop into an entrancing, yet slightly somber zone. While images of retinas bursting with color and a dove flapping its wings on an outstretched human hand looped behind them, the two allowed the crowd to grow denser while bobbing along to their rhythms.
The audience hushed as Lee walked onstage, despite the house music continuing to play overhead, and watched as they rearranged three barstools: one for the bundle of roses, one for their DI box, and one for their electric guitar. When the stage lights hit just right on Lee’s black wig, it flashed the same deep blue as a raven’s plumage. Picking up the guitar to strum it in a lackadaisical manner just as often as they returned it, Lee rolled from one song into the next while plugged into a lone Fender amp: “Lucifer Stand,” “Dreams of You,” “Wild One.” A backing track churned out the rest of the music overhead, flitting from shrill, feedback-blasting takes to cozy, lo-fi grain.
