The strange thing about Clinic is that while their records aren’t terribly different from one another, watching the band live really brings out certain elements of their style. When they’re on stage, one more easily notices how prominent a part the melodica holds, or how quick Jonathan Hartley actually is on guitar. They’re an underrated bunch, that Clinic.
They played new record Do It! in its entirety, following the set with a bitty intermission and old favorites, the most well-received being “Walking With Thee” and rather “Jack the Ripper”-ish “Pet Eunuch,” off 2002’s Walking With Thee. They were also surprisingly tame after a dramatic opening set by Shearwater, whose Jonathan Freiburg recently quit Okkervil River in order to pursue Shearwater full time, and whose drummer Thor Harris packs a mean hammer dulcimer.