The sun never sets on the Dandy Warhols

As I sat in the air-conditioned dressing room backstage at the Miller Lite Oasis on Saturday afternoon, I thought I’d ask the obvious question.

“How can the Dandy Warhols play an hour-long set in the middle of the afternoon?” I asked keyboardist/bassist Zia McCabe.

“Well,” she smiled, “we are rockers in the fall.”

That’s a bit of an exaggeration, because even though the Dandys will be celebrating their 30th anniversary in 2024, you can’t tell by looking at them or listening to them. And I’ve done that many times over the years and seen them perform maybe a dozen times. Their shows are long with extended jams, unlike how they sound in studio recordings… and they certainly don’t start before the sun goes down.

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Although I’ve seen them play in Chicago and Madison, I’ve rarely seen the band in Milwaukee; their last appearance here was in 2014. I wasn’t sure how much energy they’d have for such an early show, but that was their Summerfest slot, so they turned the opportunity into a mini-tour of three cities in the Midwest.

As far as I can remember, they had never played Summerfest before, and both McCabe and lead singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor agreed. So I left their dressing room, took my place in the orchestra pit, and waited to once again find my live music happy place. It only took one song.

After the show, I asked the band if they’d done a soundcheck, because their first song, “Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth” – the song that got me interested in the band in 1997 – was muddy due to the volume being adjusted on the fly. Taylor-Taylor told me that you just can’t do a soundcheck at a festival like this, so they chose that song to start with because it’s more fun for the band to play it a little differently each time. After all, they’ve played that hit a million times, and it made sense when Taylor-Taylor explained that this was the best way to keep it interesting for them to play live.

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With the levels adjusted, my universe came into alignment as another, albeit more condensed, Dandy Warhols concert unfolded amidst the large crowd of diehard fans and curious passersby. It feels like an inside joke at this point to see a few younger hipsters wearing Brian Jonestown Massacre t-shirts thanks to the controversial but epic documentary Dig! But the boomer next to me in the white safari shirt was in his 70s and knew all the songs too.

I told Taylor-Taylor this as I drove him and touring drummer Pat Spurgeon to dinner at Goodkind, and he astutely pointed out that we’re all getting older: the band, the fans, and that reporter who first interviewed them on the 13th anniversary of the 2000 masterpiece “Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia.”

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“Autumn Years,” I’m not ready to admit it, but he brought up a good point. It’s not lost on me, as I’ve only attended Summerfest professionally since 1998. I’ve almost forgotten how to watch a show at Summerfest without writing a review.

Still, it was a great way to see a band that you got to know on a personal level, as I got to enjoy some of my favorite old Dandy Warhols songs like “We Used To Be Friends,” “The Last High,” and “Godless.” They went even further back with “Ride,” which, even though it came out in 1995, sounds new and modern.

And for the first time I was able to hear songs from their new album “Rockmaker”, such as “The Summer of Hate”.

About halfway through the show, Taylor-Taylor told the audience, “Here’s a song we’ve wanted to play in Wisconsin for 40 years.” (I think he kept the band going for 10 years longer, but I’m not kidding.)

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Of course it was “The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” And it actually made my group smile because we wondered if they were getting ready to play “Minnesoter,” which wouldn’t have made much sense.

As I continued to think through my thoughts, I had to smile again when McCabe switched from her Korg synth to bass and I noticed that her skills continue to improve. On drums, Spurgeon is an excellent replacement for Brent DeBoer, who lives in Australia and mainly tours with the band on longer tours, and their original drummer Eric Hedford, who also still plays with them from time to time.

Both Taylor-Taylor and Peter Holmström play their instruments flawlessly and impeccably. I used the time with the band after the show again to ask a question that I think I know the answer to: How much did you rehearse for this show?

Not much, they told me. They considered the June 27 Chicago show a warm-up, but here’s the thing: This band doesn’t really need to hone its craft. Even though all the members are doing other things in life, they still play as a cohesive unit. And when they met these big foodies for dinner in Bay View, it was confirmed: They still like each other. Aside from DeBoer, they all still live in Portland and do a lot for their city. When they’re on tour, they sleep on the same bus.

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In short, it was a wonderful show, even if the extended jams in “I Love You” understandably had to be cut. McCabe doesn’t loop her droning baseline of the song; she plays it by hand. For an hour, the world felt right again and my happy place remained intact.

After the show, I showed the group, their small entourage, and their opening act for this tour, Detroit’s Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor, a few places near Goodkind. We stopped at the Cactus Club and At Random, and whether it was the ice cream or not, Taylor-Taylor decided he loved Milwaukee. So, as an unofficial Brew City ambassador, I took him and Spurgeon on a tour up Lake Drive. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll have a new neighbor.

On our mini-tour of Milwaukee, we talked about how to even define this band. Courtney told me that they sometimes call their sound “shoegaze.” I don’t think that does the Dandy Warhols justice, and as a very mediocre musician myself, my comments about their particular style of chord progressions probably made no sense, but I was pleased when Taylor-Taylor told me that he also enjoyed Saturday night’s performance and is confident he’s gained some new fans.

Anyway, Saturday night felt like a different kind of Summerfest experience for me. I founded OnMilwaukee over 26 years ago and have written hundreds of concert reviews since then. I play the role of an owner and founder more than an everyday person. But the gratitude of spending the day and night with one of my favorite bands and ending up on the tour bus talking vinyl with Zia and Monty Python with Courtney and Pat… well, that’s just the stuff a bucket list is made of.

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I hope it doesn’t take another decade for the Dandy Warhols to come back to Milwaukee, but if they do, I might head to Portland later this year for their 30th anniversary show. Their music speaks for itself, but the totality of the experience of getting to know the members of this group, which I find very underrated – that’s what made this show so special.

Set list:

Not if you were the last junkie on earth
We used to be friends
Drive
The Summer of Hate
The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald
I want to help you with your problem
Styggo
Be all right
I love you
The last rush
Hold me upright
Bohemian like you
Godless