Voxtrot Reclaim the Spotlight in Chicago

Although they've kept a low profile for the past few years, Voxtrot looked like seasoned pros as they walked onstage at Chicago's Lincoln Hall on Thursday night as part of the Tomorrow Never Knows festival, an annual event that highlights up-and-coming bands. The newly reshuffled quartet -- former keyboardist Jared Van Fleet left the band last spring -- barely acknowledged their absence from the scene, choosing instead to play down their stage banter and focus on delivering a great set.

Sticking mainly to fan favorites from their 'Raised by Wolves' and 'Mothers, Sisters, Daughters and Wives' EP's, Voxtrot put on an energetic performance, clearly showing that they had missed performing live. Although they seemed to hesitate a bit in-between songs and take a little longer than usual to tune their instruments, the crowd didn't seem to mind, especially as Voxtrot led into 'The Start of Something' halfway through their set. The bouncy keyboard melody got the entire crowd dancing and heads bopping. Even when guitarist Mitch Calvert broke a string before his solo in the song, the crowd didn't show any signs of disappointment, carrying the rest of the song with their handclaps. Calvert didn't miss a beat either, throwing on singer/guitarist Ramesh Srivastava's guitar and leading directly into his solo.

"I'm glad we got to live through that," Srivastava said about the guitar mishap. "I feel like we experienced something together." Closing with 'Missing Pieces,' Srivastava sang with all his might as the crowd waved their arms and danced. One overzealous fan even climbed atop his friends shoulders and waved his tallboy beer can excitedly at the band.

Appearing back onstage several minutes later for an encore, Srivastava addressed the dwindling crowd, "We don't remember a lot of songs because we don't play together that often. Does anyone have any requests?" As the crowd shouted out random requests, the four members of Voxtrot huddled together and picked a song. "This is a twee song from long ago," Srivastava finally said, leading the rest of the band into a cover of The The's 'This Is the Day.' Suddenly, the disco ball overhead started spinning, illuminating every corner of the room and the fans dancing along with surprised smiles on their faces. Ending their encore with 'Whiskey,' one of "the oldest Voxtrot songs ever" according to Srivastava, Voxtrot finished their set with just as much enthusiasm and swagger as they had started it with an hour prior. Although the crowd had thinned out, they had broken a guitar string and they couldn't remember enough of their older songs, it was evident that Voxtrot were just simply happy to be back on the stage playing their music live for fans once again.