It’s been a hard winter. May I hazard — a long winter? And there’s no one who could have more effectively thrown the last shudder of chill off Chicago’s big shoulders and embraced us all with a sweaty, ironically swaggering rock and roll bear hug than John Roderick and his Long Winters. The last time they came to town in October, they electrified the audience with enough warmth to power us through the dark, frigid months to come, and they swung back through early this spring just in time to charge us all up for a new season of sunshine, lakefront bike rides, drinks on the sidewalk, and the ridiculously optimistic hopefulness that maybe, just maybe, we can save the world one indie rock bacchanal at a time. Like his comrade-in-John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, Roderick is a man who clearly knows his own mind and is all the more fearless a leader for it. If Al Swearengen of Deadwood ever decided to start up an indie rock band, I’d wager it’d look an awful lot like the current touring line-up of the Long Winters. With his bushy facial hair, manly physique, effortless wit, and equally unforced intellect, Roderick leads not only his ragtag bunch of musicians, but also the whole assemblage of hipsters, former hair-metal fiends, and other devoted followers in the crowd like a benevolent dictator, cramming all the life-and-death excitement of the Old West into a thrilling rock and roll circus that all but leaves a pint of blood on the floor and the lucky spectators (literally) howling for more.

Venerable Chicago rock institution the Double Door, packed to the gills on this Saturday in mid-March, overheated with both the Al Gore-disapproved global warming outside and the energetic aftermath of the Stars of Track and Field and Bound Stems’ sets inside, played host to this celebration of music and the tender, temporary alliance between attendees that rises up like a shantytown draped in corduroy whenever two or more are gathered in the name of immaculate power pop. When the Winters finally plugged in and rocked out, after some unhurried dicking around with gear and friendly consultation with their monitor guy, and exploded into “Fire Island, AK” off their recent, glorious, long-awaited, instant-classic album Putting the Days to Bed, there was a palpable shift in the air. If the spring equinox hadn’t just recently passed, it would have been easy to mistake the moment for planetary realignment. Not because it felt heavy or weighty or profound — no, because it felt right, easy, a relief. As our want to be renewed met with the band’s want to renew us, the room seemed to hum with more than just the jangle of guitars, the clank of beer bottles, and the friction of bodies feeling the groove. It was the subcellular thrum of a whole roomful of people living contentedly in the present moment.

With this, the Winters set in motion an ecstatic, tumbling domino configuration of songs the shape of cherished musical memory. They sampled fairly evenly from their three long-players and one stunning EP —“Carparts!” “Stupid!” “Teaspoon!” “Shapes!” “Scent of Lime!” (not to mention a brief “Hot for Teacher” interlude)—as well as darting back and forth with all the swiftness and vibrancy of a buzzy, drunk honeybee between predetermined set list and fervently shouted audience requests. They even played a rare-as-a-unicorn encore. It was the kind of show that keeps you going out to shows, endlessly looking to re-create that feeling. The funny thing is, they are remarkably consistent in achieving this effect, without ever seeming calculated or formulaic about it. Perhaps they are just really, really good at what they do and really, really enjoy doing it? Fancy that.

Much has been made of Roderick’s way with words, both those sung and those ad-libbed between the singing, but is there ever any way to make enough of how careful he is with those words? And I don’t mean hesitant, but full of care. Full of the explosive gentleness of someone who deeply loves being alive and has reached a place of inner security so steadfast that he’s able to call out to us, like he’s calling to a whole passel of kittens up a tree, come on down. It’s OK. Whaddya doing up there anyway? Look at how much more fun it is to be walking around down here, our feet on the ground, poking our noses into stuff and appreciating what we’ve got for what it is. And, taking the piss out of it all a little bit, too.

Oh yes, if there is anyone who could take the piss out—out for a goddamn night on the town in a cherry red convertible—it’s our fearless leader. Between the faked text message from his mom diverting our attention away from a bobbled intro to “Rich Wife” and the announcement of his intention to alienate all the pretty girls in the audience by releasing a new album full of eight-minute-long metal epics and the bachelor party-inspired riff on Chicago’s “notorious” history of polygamy, there is no question that, on a night like this, during a concert like this, laughter is the way music sings for its own pleasure. And if you need the final spectacle of three grown men blowing brightly colored kazoos in imitation of the big honkin’ horn section in “It’s a Departure” to realize it, then so be it. John Roderick’s not above it, and nor should you be.

The melancholy exuberance of the music the band makes grows from, and blooms out of, their ability to keep one foot in the dark and one foot in the light. If the spring always awaits at the end of a long winter, then the band salutes the tension of that breaking point, the dark Thursday night of the soul, as it were, with its very name. We’re all a part of the cycle, too, even if it takes an actual, literal spring night to jolt us into awareness. I’m just glad I was there to feel the buzz. I can’t wait to see how far it carries me this time.

Long Winters Official Site
Barsuk Records