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Big Ears 2025 Day 3: Waxahatchee, Lankum, Beak>, Michael Rother Plays Neu! & Harmonia, Arooj Aftab, more (review, pics)
Saturday at Big Ears included a hard-to-beat triple bill of Beak>, Neu! cofounder Michael Rother, and heavy Irish folk group Lankum, plus lots lots more.
“I was thinking, 1 PM show, who the hell is even going to show up,” Emel said the to the packed house at Jackson Terminal. “But here you all are.” The Tunisian-American singer was performing her most recent album, MRA, in full and drew lots of applause when noting it was 100% Woman Made. Her music, a mix of traditional Arabic music and club sounds, is a style Hans Zimmer clearly cribbed from for his Dune scores and her powerful voice, plus the bass-heavy beats, could be heard for a couple blocks outside the venue.
For some people this may have been their first Big Ears show of Saturday, but this was my third event. On the way to Jackson Terminal I first hit Tennessee Theatre for the Philip Glass Ensemble who were performing Glass’ “Music in Twelve Parts” over two days, and this was the second half. Having been out very late on Friday, Glass’ work — all fluttery like bumblebee and hummingbird music — was a gorgeous ease-in to the day. I then went to the Blue Note Lounge, a pop-up space in Jackson Terminal during Big Ears that includes a record store and hosts Q&As all week. Saturday it was Blue Note president, producer and “serviceable bassist” (his own words), Don Was, who was being interviewed by writer Ashley Kahn. Don is a cool dude who has done so much in his career and was nicely honest and funny for a (non-typical) record exec.
After grabbing some lunch, I headed over to the Bijou Theatre to see Wadada Leo Smith and Vijay Iyer perform their terrific new album Defiant Life. Unfortunately this was my first bust of Big Ears, getting there not early enough to find the venue already at capacity with a massive standby line. Wasn’t going to happen. So I hoofed it back over to the other side of downtown to the Mill & Mine where I ended up parking myself for the next few hours, as it was a hard-to-beat three-band run of Beak>, Michael Rother (Neu!, Harmonia) and Lankum.
Beak> are on their North American tour which will be the last for drummer/singer Geoff Barrow (also of Portishead) who is retiring from the band and the road after this year’s scheduled live dates wrap up. A notoriously grumpy guy, Barrow and his bandmates Billy Fuller (bass) and Will Young (guitar, electronics) were all in great spirits, marvelling at the thousand or so very appreciative people who had shown up for their mid-afternoon show. “I thought there’d be no-one here,” Barrow said, genuinely surprised at the turnout. While the trio had played last year’s fantastic >>>> in full on tour in the UK last year, this was definitely more of a “best of Beak>,” opening with the first three songs of the new one but then diving into the rest of their catalog including “Brean Down,” “Sex Music,” “Wulfstan II,” and swirling “Allé Sauvage” which has always sounded like 1972 novelty hit “Popcorn” to me. They brought out their roadie, Charley, to help sing on the folky “When We Fall,” and I was surprised and happy that they also played “Secrets” which is a bonus track for their latest album.
In addition to the awesome music Beak> make, indebted to krautrock, post-punk, proto-metal and knotty ’70s folk, part of the appeal is their stage banter where Barrow, Fuller and Young take the piss out of each other. After Barrow had some thankful words for the festival and the venue, saying if it hadn’t been for Big Ears they couldn’t have afforded to do the tour, he noted that with the current state of the music industry it’s harder and for smaller bands to make money and everyone should by merch. Young replied “Geoff, Beak> have no merch on this tour,” to which Barrow said “That was probably a mistake.” Barrow also had kind things to say about Rother (“a true legend”) and calling Lankum “Beak>’s collective favorite band.”
Someone snarkier than me might joke that Saturday at the Mill & Mine we got to see Can (Beak> owe a lot to them, including Barrow’s drumming style) and Neu! Michael Rother was playing the songs of Neu! and Harmonia and his band included Hans Lampe backed by 74-75 era Neu! drummer Hans Lampe as well as guitarist Franz Bargmann and Vittoria Maccabruni on electronics and vocals, they laid down some serious, droning motorik grooves hitting some of both bands’ he cofounded classic material. The set included Neu!’s “ISI” and “Hallogallo,” Harmonia’s “Dino” and “Deluxe (Immer Wieder),” and more. So many bands have borrowed and stolen from the sound Rother helped forge and it was awesome to hear the original artifact. Rother plays NYC’s Knockdown Center tonight with Thurston Moore, HTRK, and Eiko Ishibashi.
One of those groups Rother has influenced is Lankum and the band’s Ian Lynch told the Mill & Mine crowd (another packed house) that they’d spent their whole career trying to rip off Neu!. That would, specifically, be the drone part and The Mill & Mine’s massive wood box structure was perfect for amplifying Lankum’s signature low end. When the drone drops you can feel it in your pancreas. The band’s heavy brand of Irish folk hypnotized the room, and the band’s political stance — “this one’s about how you shouldn’t help those who murder innocent people — drew cheers and shouts of “Free Palestine.” I’d seen Lankum before, in front of a reverent Brooklyn crowd, but at Big Ears where the crowd was loose and very into it, you really get why some people call them the best live band on the planet.
Around those Mill & Mine sets I caught a few other things, briefly, including Maruja‘s intense brand of jazz-punk at The Standard, Helado Negro‘s fun, welcoming and warm set at Jackson Terminal, and a rare live performance from former Lounge Lizards’ drummer Dougie Bowne who was performing an experimental, improvisational set with bassist Matt Nelson. I closed out Saturday back at The Mill & Mine with Free Form Funky Freqs, the supergroup of bassist and Ornette Coleman collaborator Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, and drummer G. Calvin Weston. A great day of music all-around.
In addition to Wadadada & Vijay, other Saturday performances at Big Ears that I didn’t catch included Waxahatchee, Arooj Aftab, June McDoom, Chanel Beads, William Basinski, Ganavya, Sun Ra Arkestra, clipping., and SML.
Check out Michael Rother’s Big Ears setlist and a gallery of photos from Saturday, below. Check out all 2025 Big Ears coverage here.
Today, Sunday, is the final day of Big Ears and performances include Explosions in the Sky, Tindersticks, Lonnie Holley, Joan as Police Woman, Mabe Fratti, Macie Stewart, Anoushka Shankar, múm, Rufus Wainwright, Nels Cline: Consentrik Quartet, and more.
SETLIST: Michael Rother @ Big Ears 3/29/2025
Neuschnee (Neu!)
Isi (Neu!)
Veteranissimo (Harmonia)
Maultrommel
Deluxe (Immer Wieder) (Harmonia)
Weissensee (Neu!)
Hallogallo (Neu!)
Negativland (Neu!)
Dino (Harmonia)
E-Musik (Neu!)
