Portlandia Live @ Echoplex - 1st Show

Although Wing and I are both fans of the show Portlandia, she has written the following review for this show since she is more familiar with Carrie Brownstein's musical background.

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Portlandia, the IFC comedy show that gently pokes fun at the eccentricity of the Pacific Northwest region (and hipster culture in general), went on a national live tour in the past few months to help promote the current second season. Tickets for the original LA show were sold out, but we were lucky that they decided to add an extra show on 1/16. The seating layout at the Echoplex was a little strange that night, but it all was forgotten as hosts Fred Armisen (SNL) and Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag) took the stage.

The show consisted of a whole lot of randoms: random bantering, random music performances, random Q&A, and random guests. It was clearly geared towards fans of the series with many in-jokes and video clips sprinkled throughout the evening. Telekinesis' Michael Lerner and Wild Flag's Rebecca Cole showed up as the backup band for Fred and Carrie on songs such as "The Dream of the 90s" and "Sunday Morning." Being a huge fan of Sleater-Kinney, and having seen Carrie perform live with Wild Flag, I must say, that it was a little weird at first to watch her delivering jokes on stage instead of rocking out. She finally let loose her signature windmill guitar moves during their last musical performance, "Manic Monday."



All in all, it was an entertaining and extremely chill night. For those of you who are all caught up on Portlandia and are craving for more of the duo's randomness, go check out Thunderant, which is kind of the early incarnation of Portlandia. Some of the show's popular recurring sketches (i.e. Feminist Bookstore) were quite possibly originated there. What are you waiting for?

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Fred and Carrie played to the audience the night of our show and joked about it being better than the 1/17 show (our show is technically supposed to the 2nd show since it was added later), but I guess it was true.  Can't believe how snarky the next night's audience was, according to LAWeekly.  And I liked the groupie couple.  I thought they were really sweet.

Photo via Losanjealous

The witty banter between Fred and Carrie was so effortless, it almost seemed rehearsed, but I knew it couldn't be since they were still doing it during the Q&A.

I'm not the biggest Sleater-Kinney fan, but seeing Carrie play that night actually got me into Wild Flag, who I am now excited to see at the upcoming Coachella.  


I leave you with a clip they played during the live show (which seems to be coming true with the hipsters in LA):




More on their 2nd LA show:
Photos from Losanjealous
Review from Hollywood Reporter