The band has not been a fully active touring and recording group since 2000, but their legacy is strong. The group's appeal lies in their epic riffs and tones, Bryan St. Pere's divine tempo control and perfect drum aesthetics and the vocals of Matt Talbot, who was delivering laid back yet darkly poetic vocals yet cracking wise well before (the also terrific) Death Cab For Cutie were huge. Hum have way bigger guitar sounds though, even though both of those bands exert great restraint at times within their respective playing styles. While I am a big fan of the huge melodic riffs, say, Billy Corgan sometimes churns out (his recent greatest accomplishment being the rad song "F.O.L."), when it comes to Chicago, Hum beats the Pumpkins and even their early day peers Shiner for waves of heavy yet melodic bliss. Tim Lash's guitar tone conveys oceans of depth yet remains awesome and less pretentious than many loosely similar shoe-gaze influenced bands and big alterna-stars, with only Pelican may be coming really close in that department. Matt Talbott's dry wit and tightrope act of noncommittal yet committal vocals contains much more shark sharp snark than many other bands ever get close to possessing. In my opinion they are damn near perfect. Maybe it's 'cuz they recorded early on with Steve Albini or just a Chicago thing, but their sensibilities kick the shit out of all these new school bands up-tempo commercial pop tinged "rebellion".

It's funny. I really got into Hum because my best friend is drummer Nate Kelley, original skinsman for Shabutie/Coheed And Cambria. He was the one who caught me on to Hum's prowess. Nate will generally cite Bryan St. Pere as a bigger influence on his playing than any other drummer. Nate really drilled into my head the merits of the band while I was still in industrial noise land on one of my "I hate melody" tangents years ago. Thank God he made me really listen to these guys and especially the Downward Is Heavenward record.

1998's Downward Is Heavenward sold only about 30,000 copies initially but is the ultimate slow grower. Since its release it has sold via grass roots love and the benefit of hindsight's kindness to become really influential in the underground and indie-influenced scenes. That record is, in my opinion not just the best thing Matt Talbott and company ever recorded, but is also a rock masterpiece. I'm not being dramatic. I really mean it. It is on my seriously underrated records list along with Orange 9mm's Driver Not Included, anything by Dripping Goss or Quicksand and Black Sabbath's Dehumanizer, but Hum probably takes the top slot.

The band has reunited sporadically over the years for one-off shows while members pursued other projects, and you may have been as startled as I was to hear their biggest song "Stars" in a car commercial (but if everyone is doing it these days I definitely want Hum to get the cash and more love/attention). When I heard that they were playing on Memorial Day in their very own kingdom of Chicago, I knew I had to get there. I am not made of money and so saved up and endured a 24 hour each way bus ride just to get to see live a group that I never expected to see. I will always kick myself for not seeing Type O Negative or Nirvana or Acid Bath, for example, and having the chance to amend one of the biggest groups on my "sucks that I missed live" list was just too much. Hum were also the biggest influence on my sadly broken up band with Nate Kelley called Pontius Pilate Sales Pitch. I feel Hum really helped me understand a lot of frontiers as a musician and that I physically owed it to thank them by doing a holy pilgrimage to see them live and then gush about it. The Hum influenced stuff I wrote with Nate in Pontius (like our total "The Pod" rip off "Young Royalty") is some of my favorite stuff I ever got to perform in a band, let alone how awesome their OWN music is!

Millenium Park is amazing, a huge outdoor amphitheater that looks like a giant whale from outer-space, speakers placed sporadically along massive metal rib-like scaffolding that is sculptural yet functional. A large stage sits down a sloped incline at the end of a huge lawn, and it is located in The Loop area of Chicago. Framed by tall skyscrapers (including a building allegedly designed to be the vaginal counterpoint to phallic skyscrapers), it really is a cool place to see a show. There's even a wicked good sushi spot adjacent to the park. There was a very big crowd of holiday wanderers and rabid faithful fans gathered. You have the option of sitting on the lawn, wandering up front to sit in free chairs or thrashing around right in front of a chair free stage pit. It's a great design, even if as a friend remarked, years from now people might look at the weird metal stacked to the stratosphere architecture of the stage and think, “What the fuck were they thinking back in the 00's.”

Opening band Volcano irked me due to the vocalist's sort of wacky delivery and warble, but I loved their drummer and the music had some weird carnival-esque twists and turns. I was just way too amped up with anticipation though to give them a fair shake, but I wished they were an instrumental band at the time.

After Volcano ended I got a huge jolt of anticipation when Tim let out one guitar note to test his set up. That one note was the unmistakable Hum distortion I know and love so well thundering out through giant speakers and I was standing right there, reduced to total fan boy. I have seen and performed hundreds and hundreds of shows but with the exception of the Bad Brains Obama Victory party at Irving Plaza a few years ago and maybe seeing Fugazi with Mearth and Blonde Redhead years ago, it is safe to say I may have never caught a bigger emotional high from a live performance. Only a few friends of mine could make it, and all of them Chicago residents, so I was flying the flag for New York. Due to the inspiring yet sometimes sad feelings behind their best songs Hum are also kind of one of my main break up "comfort" bands, which sounds corny to write but I am all about warts and all here. Feeling like I had made it to see them and followed through on a plan to honor my feelings for the music was like completing a circle and also reminded me of people I love not so much in my life anymore and my years long friendship with Nate.

There were so many good moments of this show, but the funnest part for me was maybe that Hum came out on stage to Rush's "Tom Sawyer". It's funny for several reasons both personal and Hum relevant. Matt Talbott allegedly first heard Bryan playing drums along to Rush records back in the day. Bryan can tastefully out-flourish just about anybody, but Rush is a band that really sounds far removed from his signature style of generally maximizing "less as more" when playing. When Nate left Coheed and they got famous they were often compared to Rush and have come to be very progressive. I love Rush but Nate hates them and is sick of music like that, thus when we formed Pontius Pilate Sales Pitch our goal was to emulate the indie influence of Death Cab, Weezer and Hum but darker and with a side of Glassjaw. It went way over the heads of a lot of Coheed's fans who wanted Nate to play in a band that sounded just like Shabutie. Whatever. Nate wrote Hum once and was briefly in their top friends on MySpace which he has said meant even more to him than any minor fame as a former drummer of a now world famous group.

As Hum crashed into "The Pod" from their best known album You'd Prefer An Astronaut, I finally realized this actually WAS happening! I felt like I was fucking levitating and hope that you all experience a similar feeling sometime in your life from music. It was like I had reached my fucking mecca. If that sounds cheesy, well, after seventeen years as a singer in the underground and all the highs and lows, you learn to really appreciate the bands that mean the most to you and inspire you to keep going as an artist. I'm sure I don't feel alone about that when it comes to Hum. I think I remember even reading once that Most Precious Blood were big fans of them!

"Stars" got rowdy cheers as expected and the massive notes of the metallic bridge seemed to spiral up into the blue Chicago sky while also shaking the earth below. There had been a truly elemental thunder storm earlier in the day but it all cleared up and became perfect just prior to show time, cooling things off and also adding to the great vibes. "Green To Me" from Downward Is Heavenward was sandwiched with my favorite Hum song "Ms. Lazarus", showcasing their ability to craft anthemic chordal bombast and intricate, musing numbers. The guitar "solo" on "Ms. Lazarus" really propels the song forward and remains brilliant to this day. The diehards in the crowd were pleasantly relentless in nagging the band to truly reunite and make a new record. Matt was obtuse about it all, with his major stage banter of the night being a remark that the sunlight off a building reminded him of watching Attack Of The Clones with his kid earlier in the day (at least I think that's what he said, haha).

It was super cool the band played some more obscure stuff from the Electra 2000 album. "Iron Clad Lou" marched with an assured push that rocked hard and "Scraper" was a great way to hammer picnicking types into a pulp. I think Hum humorously played nearly all of their songs that say "Fuck", which I guess is hard to resist doing if you know you have the chance to do it to a huge crowd on a holiday in the middle of Chicago. Choice! Matt was kind of ashamed after "Scraper" and jokingly told the crowd he wasn't so angry anymore. A charged version of "Comin' Home" was faster but worked well and has so many tight accents, though Talbott seemed to struggle most with this song vocally. Who cares! It was amazing.

The best song of the night was probably "The Scientists". This band basically are a bunch of scientists, even if they are goofballs at times. It also happens to be an incredibly touching work of art and contains the classic sing-along line "I will take care of you. I will take care of everything." These guys have taken care of their own lives and legacy on their own terms over the passing years, but it was great to see them come back and take care of the music business as well, an understated yet loud reminder of what real music is worth. Whether they make another record or not they are evidence that the bedrock behind the musical journey and the subsequent art is more important than the allure of fame.