My Love for Okkervil River Is Now Old Enough to Drink
It’s been 21 years since we saw them live for the first time — and I’ve loved them ever since.
Ahhhh, Okkervil River. Seems like just yesterday I first heard your impassioned indie-rock sounds and swooned forevermore.
But it wasn’t yesterday. It was, in actuality, 21 years ago.
This means my love affair with your music is old enough to legally drink in the US, if musical love affairs were humans who could try to get into bars. That is a strange sentence, but I still adore you so much even after all these years that it makes me tongue-tied and awkward.
To celebrate two decades (plus another year) of loving this incredible band, I’m sharing our very first Okkervil Revier live show review, from when Imaginary Dana and I saw them play at the old Crocodile Cafe with just a few dozen other fans. They were just on the cusp of becoming an indie-rock-fan household name of sorts. It was thrilling to see them with so few people in attendance, knowing it was likely our last chance to do so (it was — by SXSW 2006 we were swept up in the mob of screaming fans).
The band has gone on to release eight studio albums from 2003 to 2018, and that doesn’t include the captivating spinoff releases from Okkervil…
