The first time I saw Jason Molina’s good ol’ Electric Co. it was hot. It was unbearably hot, and my water supply was waning. The stage was hovering high on a heat cloud above the heads of hundreds, perhaps thousands of other festival goers. Jason was wearing what I can only imagine to be one of his best long-sleeved black t-shirts, and the rest of band looked to be clad in some variation of that. I can only imagine how sweaty they must have been. They were rocking…in the midst of an ultra sunny Chicago summer afternoon, after all. They lightly head-banged their way through most of “What Comes After The Blues” and select works from the ultimate Songs: Ohia album. My memory serves me a vivid depiction of “I’ve Been Riding With The Ghost.” Unfortunately, those details are nearly all I can remember from the performance, other than being fantastically bored.

I have enjoyed all the Songs: Ohia/Magnolia Electric Co. releases to varying degrees, but never has one made me feel as tired as that performance. There is a sweet desolation, and earnest profundity to the class of songwriting which Jason Molina employs. His self-loathing Neil Young timbre evokes the bleakness of a rainy day enveloped by the warmth of a down-home woodland. Frankly, I love it, but it is hardly the kind of music that translates well over a 100+ degree summer breeze. And that is the precise reason why I didn’t want to write off the live Electric Co. experience based on said exhibition.

Despite being underwhelmed, I have kept my favorites of Jason’s catalog in fairly regular rotation, and they still work their wonders on those particularly bad days. So there was no reason, after a year, that I should not give his live show a second chance. I thought, “The Sokol Underground has such a nice low ceiling, its aroma reeks ruggedly of smoke, and there is a general air of intimacy that would be a perfect accompaniment to some sublimely dreary brand of musical styling! So this show is going to be totally redeeming!”

I guess I was a tad over zealous, but only a tad. Maybe it’s just that live, Magnolia Electic Co. isn’t that dreary, or it is possible that my personal taste is not receptive to their chosen presentation. The fact is, that while I find the recordings to be beautiful and quite affecting, they fall about as flat as some baby’s tit live. Yes, yes, Jason’s voice sounds as great live as it does on record, but when you couple what typically comes off as organic despair with his (and his bandmates’) awkward head-bobbing, you aren’t really moved so much as you’re kind of uncomfortable. The songs were tight, and mostly of the more up/midtempo “Fading Trails” or “What Comes After The Blues” material. Which is all really wonderful stuff, but the keys and tempos are remarkably similar. Thus without the dynamic shift usually provided within the bookends of an album, the songs aren’t really allowed to distinguish themselves. All those subtle moments of catharsis are lost, and that wonderful aesthetic that Jason Molina infuses his best work with gets entirely hidden beneath the plateau of his live band arrangement, leaving the audience to traverse a terrain that, no matter how greatly represented in other forms, in its immediacy is merely flat land.

Now, Ladyhawk outrightly resides on the other end of the spectrum. They pack a punch of southern sass, and the gutty crunch of all great rock ’n roll. From the opening caterwaul of “Advice,” I knew they had what I was hoping for. Dynamically, they slid in and out of audio crevasses like the tongue of some drunken socialite does the mouths of hot rich boys. Their set was sort of a rollercoaster, utilizing wailing guitars as a vehicle for their songs’ subjects rather than a ploy for rock. I’m not pointing my squirrelly little finger, but there are a few bands that could benefit much from implementing the same tactic into their live show. Ladyhawk swayed and spun about the stage, letting their instruments repine with them. Their presence was what should have been the perfect precursor to Magnolia Electric Co.’s set. Instead it was very much the high point of the evening.