Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia Live At the Wonder

To celebrate the 13th anniversary of their third album, The Dandy Warhols recorded a concert at the Wonder Ballroom in their hometown of Portland, Ore. There they played that album—Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia—from start to finish. Despite claims that their previous attempts at recording live albums fell short, the band sound quite powerful here. Whatever studio fairy dust had been used in the making of the 2000 release didn’t define the album, because onstage, without the luxuries of the studio, the band hold their own admirably, giving a heady, full sound to key Dandy tracks as “Godless,” “Mohammed,” “Horse Pills," and the album’s breakthrough hit, “Bohemian Like You” (which had been featured in a notable Vodafone commercial and on the cult-classic TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer). It’s fascinating to hear the band reacquaint themselves with all the nuances of a classic album.