One of the words that Bill Callahan uses most frequently on Resuscitate!, a live album recorded in March 2023, is “dreams.” We’re coming in and out of them on “First Bird.” They’re places of transmogrification, danger, and in fact the ultimate reality on “Coyotes.” “Dream, baby, dream,” Callahan seems to ad lib on “Natural Information,” a song about pushing his infant daughter down the street, now reinforced with the greatest lesson this wised-up dad could ever teach her. It’s 11 years since Callahan released his 15th album, Dream River, a record he intended to be the last thing the listener heard at night, guiding them tenderly to their sleep state. Since then, marriage, fatherhood, and a new embrace of expansive thinking have taken the 58-year-old songwriter to a whole other metaphysical plane. I often think of beautiful coincidences as being like an eclipse—two celestial bodies lining up for just a second that you’re lucky enough to catch—and Callahan has become a stargazer for those moments in his writing, especially as he observes the habits of his young family; his melodies, too, have become more open, transcendent, reaching for something beyond.
That night at Chicago’s Thalia Hall, Callahan and his band attained a sort of dream state, sounding generative and otherworldly. “The date was mid-point in the tour,” Callahan writes in the accompanying notes, “so I knew we’d be as hot as we were going to get. Not too green, not too brown.” (He also notes that he tries to work only with venues, such as Thalia Hall, outside the Live Nation/Ticketmaster nexus, and maybe that freedom wriggles in.) In opening song “First Bird” alone, Callahan, guitarist Matt Kinsey, tenor sax player Dustin Laurenzi, and drummer Jim White voyage further than most bands ever do in a whole set. It starts off sounding like a mysterious night on the plains, full of skittish life forms, prowling bass, flashes of woodwind. As Callahan grows more fervent, the instruments vibrate with anticipation, and then come to tumble in and out of sync with their leader’s mercurial, deeply felt phrasing. It peaks with Callahan cawing “Tall! Tall! Tall!,” as if we were that titular first bird; after six minutes, the squalling guitar propels a full-band tumbledown climax. Even though parts of this ensemble have been playing together for a long time—and any group with White as its center has magic on its side—the telepathy between them is astonishing.
I saw Callahan in London at the outset of this run, in November 2022, and as a veteran fan, it was perhaps my least favorite show of his that I’ve seen. The setlist dwelled largely on his post-pandemic records, as this night in Chicago did, with scant exceptions. I love YTI⅃AƎЯ and Gold Record as much as the next person who loves joy, but why forsake your sweet Smog children! The playing was so digressive—the version of “Coyotes” on Resuscitate! lasts nearly 13 minutes, and many others run to around seven minutes—that I rued what felt like indulgence standing in the way of the old classics.
