The low-key Hoboken, New Jersey band Yo La Tengo doesn't use fancy tour titles. But if it needed a name for its current show, "Lullabies and Nightmares" would be the perfect inscription.
Performing Friday night at the Granada Theater, it lulled fans into a happy trance in its first set, then attacked them in the second with feedback-drenched hallucinations. Yo La Tengo has devoted its entire 30-year-career to exploring variations on those two moods; the half-and-half approach underscored just how diverse the trio can be.
Singer-drummer Georgia Hubley opened the acoustic portion with a whispery remake of the Cure's "Friday I'm In Love," one of the cover tunes that make up the band's fourteenth and latest album, Stuff Like That There. Her husband, Ira Kaplan, strummed acoustic guitar, James McNew gently plucked an upright bass and the entire theater was so hushed you could hear bartenders opening cans of beer.
As lovely as the mellow set was, it amplified the band's weaknesses. Hubley and Kaplan tend to sing in flat voices that recall their hero, Lou Reed, and their harmonies can be just as rough. Dueting on Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," the duo's voices bumped against each other like puzzle pieces that didn't quite fit.
After intermission, Yo La Tengo came out roaring as Kaplan pushed the outer limits of guitar feedback and Hubley and McNew wove loud, hypnotic rhythms. Every now and then, the band showed some mercy: "Mr. Tough" was a sweet slice of Philly soul complete with falsetto voices, and the group said farewell with a soothing version of "By the Time It Gets Dark" by the late Fairport Convention singer Sandy Denny.
But most of the 90-minute second set was a violent upheaval, drenched in distortion, and definitely not for the faint of heart. At its best, it was a Philip Glass garage-rock symphony with Jimi Hendrix on guitar.
Even when the guitar noise meandered, Kaplan was still a blast to watch. He pummeled his guitar, swung it through the air like a lariat, then dropped to his knees and wrestled it like a bear.
Earlier in the show, Kaplan talked about Yo La Tengo's infamous Club Clearview gig in the mid '90s: A deafening dance beat from the club next door had forced the band to move its show to Clearview's parking lot - only to be drowned out again, this time by street noise.
"Deep Ellum on a weekend night? What could be quieter?" Kaplan said, sounding amused at his youthful naivety.
Back then, Yo La Tengo hadn't yet fully tapped into its cacophonous side. These days, it's perfected the art of turning the volume to 11 and obliterating everything else in its path.
Thor Christensen is a Dallas writer and critic. Email him at thorchris2@yahoo.com.
