Posts Tagged ‘Review’
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
Lynyrd Skynyrd - The Wellmont Theatre - November 18, 2009
(Photo: Sean O’Kane)
After more than 30 years in music, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band Lynyrd Skynyrd has earned the right to have a boisterous stage setup. Before their set even started, the stage boasted two acoustic guitars, three keyboards, a piano, two drum sets worth of drums, four flat-screen televisions and a logo that spanned about 20 feet. When all nine touring members took the stage last night at The Wellmont Theatre, they proved just why they’ve earned it by unleashing a set of megahits during a loud and thrilling set lasting longer than an hour.
They played every hit, from the honky-tonk “Gimme Three Steps” to the sweeping ballad “Tuesday’s Gone” (during which raised lighters actually outnumbered cell phones) to the darker grit of “That Smell.” With hardly any material the band has released in the last decade, the night was dedicated to the biggest and best of Lynyrd Skynyrd. All three guitarists constantly rotated solos in practically every song, often dueling back-to-back. Vocalist Johnny Van Zant roamed the stage while belting out each song, either laughing with his bandmates or engaging the crowd by reaching his microphone stand (adorned with a Confederate flag for half the set) over the seats.
As the first few plucky notes of “Sweet Home Alabama” signaled the beginning of the end, the crowd (a mix of people in cowboy hats, American-flag-branded clothing and, of course, Derek Jeter jerseys) roared with delight. When the band finished, they turned their collective attention to one thing, and for the first time ever at The Wellmont Theatre, the crowd actually yelled for “Free Bird” in the correct setting. —Sean O’Kane
Tags: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Review, The Wellmont Theatre
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Friday, November 13th, 2009
White Denim/Brazos - Music Hall of Williamsburg - November 12, 2009
White Denim
In my opinion, Austin, Texas, is one of the truly great American cities, seamlessly patching together disparate archetypes into one coherent, unique population. Last night, two Austin bands rocked Music Hall of Williamsburg with music that carried on the mash-up spirit of their hometown. Ostensibly, the only thing they had in common was that both are guitar-bass-drum trios from the same city, but, taking a step back, you could see how each tied together a wide range of sounds and influences that became their own distinct music. You could break down each bit if you wanted to, but that would defeat the purpose.
The headliner was White Denim. Guitarist-vocalist James Petralli began by setting up several overlapping loops with his guitar to immediately densify the sound. I was not expecting that. Over 20 minutes, a broken guitar string and plenty of awe-inspiring face-melt rock later, they finally took their first pause before quickly diving back into it. They repeated this routine thrice—was it three 20-minute songs or 20 three-minute songs strung together with virtuoso segue and genre-defying sound? Doesn’t matter. The music expertly flip-flopped through styles until all influences were invisible. In true power-trio form, each musician seemed to add more than one-third of the sound, amplifying the music to an awesome better-than-its-parts level. Their new release, Fits, while highly recommended, is a coy hint of the live show’s intensity.
The opener, Brazos, was the stripped-down, dreamy groove-pop version of the same blind-influence mash. Keep an eye on these guys. Highlighted by a greased-pig bass that surprised me with its slipperiness, the trio got quite a bit of bounce out of its sound. After their too-short set, the crowd gave a hearty applause befitting a headliner. —A. Stein
Tags: Brazos, Fits, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Review, White Denim
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Thursday, November 12th, 2009
The XX/Jon Hopkins - The Bowery Ballroom - November 11, 2009
(Photo: Mina K)
The XX show that sold out Mercury Lounge last night, and then subsequently The Bowery Ballroom, was one for the pretty people. It was a scene, but it was all the better thanks to the eye candy! Pretty people have good taste in music, too. Anyhow, Jon Hopkins, the opener, definitely deserves a mention because his fantastic mixing of melodies and crazy beats was unassuming, yet it totally entranced the jaded hipsters (some of whom even danced!) waiting for the headliners.
It was my first time seeing the XX live, in spite of the number of shows they have played in NYC over the last few months. At the start of their set I thought they sounded a bit forced, almost metronomic, and I kept wanting them to slip up. This distance, however, seems to be a calculated effort. Their seductive vocals are perfectly counterbalanced by the bass and synth beats, so seeing them live is, in the words of a friend, much like a first date—the initial impression is great, but the future potential is all in your imagination. This dynamic creates a very interesting energetic suspension, particularly on songs like “Basic Space,” and their closer, “Stars.” Listeners are drawn to the songs but slightly rebuffed before they can get inside them. Overall, the appeal of a band like the XX is much like the promise of a kiss (or more) at the end of the night—always something to look forward to, whether or not it actually happens. —Anna Loosli
(Jon Hopkins opens for the Asteroids Galaxy Tour tonight at Mercury Lounge.)
Tags: Bowery Ballroom, Jon Hopkins, Review, the XX
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Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Wolfmother - Music Hall of Williamsburg - November 9, 2009
What was it your mother told you about making a good first impression? Wolfmother learned that lesson well, opening their show at Music Hall of Williamsburg with an eight-minute “Dimension”—an explosion of guitar and falsetto, machine-gun drums and bass. What was it your mother said about playing with matches? The band wasn’t quite as good with that one, throwing flame at the dry tinder of the audience. Never mind that it was a Monday night, it took about 30 seconds for the jacked-up, sold-out crowd to turn into a flailing mosh pit.
From there it was just a matter of playing with fire. Wolfmother leaned heavily on new material but strategically placed songs from the debut album throughout. Of course, these got the greatest reaction, with the crowd taking them in like an intravenous hit of an adrenaline-testosterone cocktail. These tunes were a bit more developed with long, pyrotechnic guitar sections and psychedelic breakdowns. Frontman Andrew Stockdale seemed to be able to flip a switch and turn a formless blob of volume and speed into a coherent sound at will. Never mind a lineup change or two, the band was tight and at his beck and call.
When the band hit “Woman” midset, the crowd and band merged with a crazy intensity, crowd-surfing, stage-diving and the whole lot. This was no video game. Stockdale joked about being warned that the Brooklyn crowd would just stand there, arms crossed, asking, “What have you got?” but the reality was kinetic craziness. Ending the set with a spacey “White Unicorn,” the volume maxed-out to the red, blowing a hole right onto N. 6th St. —A. Stein
Wolfmother - Terminal 5 - November 8, 2009
Photos courtesy of Michael Weintrob | www.michaelweintrob.com
Tags: Music Hall of Williamsburg, photos, Review, Terminal 5, Wolfmother
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Monday, November 9th, 2009
Alberta Cross - Mercury Lounge - November 6, 2009
A surprisingly large crowd made the post-work trek to the early show at Mercury Lounge on Friday to see the ethereal blues-rockers Alberta Cross. As a reward, the band put on a remarkable performance for an early billing. Alberta Cross is multifaceted to say the least. Swedish frontman Petter Stakee’s earnest vocals contrasted lead guitarist Sam Kearney’s violently melodic style and captivated the crowd. Behind them, the rhythm section of Terry Wolfers, Alec Higgins and Austin Beede helped the band jump from their more Southern rock-style jams to their lighter, more melody-driven tunes.
The band featured a heavy dose of their full-length debut, Broken Side of Time (released in September), and highlighted tunes like “Song Three Blues,” a slow-burning blues ballad. Stakee’s thin frame swayed back and forth when not glued to the microphone, dishing out his own dose of erratic guitar lines. Alberta Cross displayed incredible aural control, matching four-part vocals and wild instrumental breaks without letting their sound get too muddy and loud. Stakee’s voice rang the loudest, exceptionally showcased on “Taking Control,” on which he wailed in a strikingly high register. The band wound down with “Rise from the Shadows” (a song Stakee described as “gospel”), involving the crowd with the simple chorus and all sorts of clapping, and ended their early set all to quickly. —Sean O’Kane
Photos courtesy of Sean O’Kane | seanokanephoto.com
Tags: Alberta Cross, Mercury Lounge, photos, Review
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Monday, November 9th, 2009
Girls/Real Estate - The Bowery Ballroom - November 6, 2009
Expectations invariably follow Girls. From their emergence on the indie-music scene, San Francisco natives Christopher Owens and JR White have captured imagination and awe. Perhaps it is Owens’s tortured lyrics paired with Girls’ ’60s pop-rock sound, an enigmatic combination to outsiders, but a magnetic force for fans. Or perhaps it is the steady stream of media plaudits for the group’s debut album, Album. Regardless, on Friday at The Bowery Ballroom, a sold-out crowd teemed around the stage to witness the band behind the story.
Real Estate, out of Ridgewood, N.J., opened the show. The quartet delivered washed-out guitar riffs with a cool, breezy feel. Songs like “Black Lake” highlighted the band’s use of muffled melodies to communicate laid-back ease. For their brief yet highly danceable tune “Green River,” Girls’ Owens lent a hand on tambourine. Real Estate has yet to release an LP, but their music is available on two 7-inch records, Fake Blues and Suburban Beverage.
As Girls took to the stage, the crowd immediately requested songs. “Lust for Life!” someone near me shouted. While this kind of heckling may throw off some bands, Owens and Girls never appeared fazed. The band played most of Album’s singles, including a mellowed-out version of “Hellhole Ratrace,” “Lauren Marie” and, yes, even “Lust for Life.” Owens switched between a vintage-style Rickenbacker electric guitar and an acoustic one throughout the show. White, solid and steady on the bass, and the rest of the newly revamped touring band ably backed Owens. Girls gave a solid performance for arguably the most-hyped band around. Owens, in somewhat of an acknowledgement to this fact, responded to an audience member asking, “Are you cold?” with: “I’m smoking hot.” —Jared Levy
Photos courtesy of Jared Levy
Tags: Bowery Ballroom, Girls, photos, Real Estate, Review
Posted in house list, photos, reviews | 1 Comment »
Friday, November 6th, 2009
Islands - The Bowery Ballroom - November 5, 2009
The Unicorns were a surprising mix of indie-pop experimentation. They broke all kinds of rules, all while crafting funny, ridiculous, hypertwee adolescent pop. Their first album was a critical success, so they immediately disbanded to reform as th’ Corn Gangg, briefly playing hip-hop covers of Unicorns songs. Following another break up, they returned as Islands, which, as Nick Thorburn constantly reminds interviewers, are forever. Two members remain at the core of all of these projects: Thorburn and Jamie Thompson, whose tumultuous relationship has spawned some of the most endearing and innovative pop songs over the past 10 years.
Islands, known for their onstage theatrics, didn’t disappoint. Dressed in all white, almost Greek-influenced robes with head wreaths, Thorburn headed the forum with a James Brown-inspired, diamond-studded cape. Comfortable onstage, all through “Vapours” he stared down at fans, baptizing them with a push of his hand, swiping their beer or even picking up a notebook left on the edge of the stage and writing the owner a note. There’s an inherent sense of humor to their music that still comes from that experimental place of unorthodox instrumentation and clever lyrics. Who else could passionately deliver “Uncross my arms/To disarm the car bomb/It’s taking too long/Something must be wrong”? Islands are taking their playful formula further and further with each album, becoming more polished, and reintroducing synth and dance rhythms in pursuit of that perfect pop sound. Saving the best for last, they indulged the crowd with “Rough Gem,” which launched the Bowery crowd into a final frenzy of indie-rock proportions. —Jason Dean
Photos courtesy of Mina K
Tags: Bowery Ballroom, Islands, photos, Review
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Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Thao with the Get Down Stay Down - Bowery Ballroom - November 4, 2009
(Photo: Shervin Lainez)
The cover of Thao with the Get Down Stay Down’s newest album features frontwoman Thao hitting a piñata with a cheering crowd behind her (including the rest of the band). Never mind that the piñata is actually an oversize human heart and that there’s blood streaming out where the candy should be. It’s a perfect image for their music, a put-a-smile-on-your-face party. The tone of their Bowery Ballroom show was set before they even hit the stage when the album’s opening 30-second track, “The Clap,” played over the P.A. This was a directive to the crowd: You will clap. Sure enough, the rest of the night was a clap-along, sing-along, fun-filled Festivus.
The key word here is fun, and how could you not have fun with a band name like that? The music was deceptively light and bubbly, riding on a bouncy bass. Thao had a twitchy, kinetic energy with a slight rasp to her voice that was irresistible: It was clear that almost everyone in The Bowery, man and woman, had a crush on the woman and on the music. There is an indistinct ethnicity to the songs, a sort of Euro-Afro-Caribbean combo. This is sexy, flirty music, way groovy without getting too thick.
Before “When We Swam,” Thao explained that the lyric was “Oh, bring your hips” not “open your hips” and had her bandmates demonstrate a hip-centric dance move (“If you do it, you’re gonna get laid!”), then proceeded to flirt, PG-13 style, with her music, tickling her guitar and getting a giggly groove out of it. For the encore, they nearly recreated the album cover with nine people on stage, including members of the stellar opening act, the Portland Cello Project. It was a party, through and through. —A. Stein
Tags: Bowery Ballroom, Review, Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, the Portland Cello Project
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Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
Noah and the Whale - Mercury Lounge - November 3, 2009
It’s hard to say what this crowd came to see. Charlie Fink, lead singer of Noah and the Whale, sort of shuffled to the stage with his five-piece band fully intent on playing large swatches of their new album, First Rites of Spring, ostensibly a love note and a gigantic fuck you to Fink’s ex-girlfriend and former bandmate, Laura Marling. The record is a gut-wrenching exegesis on breaking up, and Fink is more than intent to play it the way a mechanic can stare into the bowels of your car and tell you, quite simply, your engine doesn’t work. Except that it’s Fink who is broken, which is exactly what the crowd has shown up to see. The band opened with “Blue Skies,” arguably the most uplifting of Fink’s tragic masterwork. Of course, this would be like saying The Old Guitarist was the most uplifting painting of Picasso’s Blue Period.
There are aspects of schadenfreude at work here. You couldn’t say Fink looked sickly or drunk or morose or any of the other signifiers that usually typify modern human breakups, and yet the music told a different story. Playing “Our Window,” which vividly describes the night of their separation, Fink was either completely satisfied with his documentation of this event or he’s still actively hurt by it. Either way, we’ve all stopped to watch his emotional car accident, beautifully scored as it may be. What’s that say about us, members of the nearly sold-out crowd, who came to witness this? Were we hoping to be healed in this fire? As the band ripped through the end of “First Rites of Spring,” you felt Fink connect for the first time with this catharsis we’ve come to be a part of. It was the last song of their main set and then they moved into “Shape of My Heart,” from their first album. It had a different tone but given the circumstances, whatever the shape of Fink’s heart, it was almost certainly still broken. —Geoff Nelson
Tags: First Rites of Spring, Mercury Lounge, Noah and the Whale, Review
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Monday, November 2nd, 2009
The Get Up Kids - Music Hall of Williamsburg - November 1, 2009
While bands like KISS have devalued the real significance of reunion tours, there are still acts like the Get Up Kids willing to prove that not all reunion tours are half-assed attempts at moneygrubbing. Taking the stage to the tongue-in-cheek intro music of Prince’s “1999,” the Get Up Kids wrapped up a three-night stay in New York City with a sold-out show at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Following a now commonly brilliant set from hometown boy Kevin Devine, the Get Up Kids made, surprisingly, their first-ever appearance in Brooklyn. More than just a trip down memory lane, the show was filled with energy not normally seen on reunion tours.
Mixing in everything from the ubiquitous “Holiday” to B-side “Anne Arbour,” the band played for more than an hour to the delight of the raucous crowd. Lead singer Matt Pryor’s voice sounded remarkably similar to the recordings on the band’s watershed album, Something to Write Home About, released a decade ago. But the group also had to tread new ground during the set (thanks to guitarist Jim Suptic’s allergic reaction to his Tin Man costume from their Halloween show). Left voiceless, Suptic’s vocals were picked up by keyboard player James Dewees, who jokingly apologized about how his low range would make his new parts sound “too screamo.”
After a stage-dive-inducing performance of “I’m a Loner Dottie, a Rebel…” during the encore, Pryor asked if the audience wanted a “slow song or a rock song.” When the crowd screamed for the latter, one more vocal substitution was needed. Pryor grinned his way through “Ten Minutes,” normally sung by Suptic, and admitted he had never sung it before. —Sean O’Kane
Tags: Kevin Devine, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Review, the Get Up Kids
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Friday, October 30th, 2009
Justice - Webster Hall - October 29, 2009
(Photo: Jared Levy)
I watched the trailer for Justice’s documentary, A Cross the Universe, before last night’s show at Webster Hall. Wedged between scenes of the French DJ duo’s hedonistic road trip are equally wild images of their high-energy performances. Scantily clad fans gyrate and bellow. Lights flash in unison with electronic house beats. An illuminated cross looms over an ironically sacrilegious scene. The 90-second teaser gave a glimpse of the intensely debaucherous concert to come.
You could feel the music walking through the venue. The distortion-saturated melodies and bass-heavy rhythms compelled dance rather than inspired it. Making my way through the throngs, the first song I recognized was “DVNO,” from Justice’s debut album, †. Their performance featured a deft mix of familiar hits and pulsating electronic numbers. For this show, their trademark cross was digital rather than physical, which detracted little from Justice’s stage presence. The two DJs raged along with their selections, chain-smoking cigarettes and occasionally flashing the gesture of a cross. They guided the music with an assured cool though they were just as capable of erratically raving with the crowd.
In some ways, it’s useless to recount the songs I deciphered. Of course I recognized when the duo played their Grammy-nominated single, “D.A.N.C.E.,” and songs by the Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk. But the show was a holistic experience rather than a collection of songs—a continuous thought transitioned sometimes subtly and sometimes blatantly. As the crowd roared at 3 a.m. with a passion equal to earlier in the night, Justice closed with a combination of “We Are Your Friends,” their remix of Simian’s “Never Be Alone,” and War’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” I was drenched in sweat with my ears ringing as I left just a few hours before sunrise, feeling drained and energized. Few DJs are capable of creating a show with passion and force equal to Justice. —Jared Levy
Tags: Justice, Review, Webster Hall
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Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Florence and the Machine - The Bowery Ballroom - October 27, 2009
Watching Florence Welch sing is like watching any number of acts, absurd in their direction, scope and control. She is a dunk from the foul line, a release of water held furtively behind a dam, the climactic scene of Scent of a Woman. She is mind-blowing. In fact, she may directly oppose every visual metaphor in this paragraph. She is like the Grand Canyon: You’ve either seen it up close, or you haven’t.
Dressed in flowing white, Welch spilled to the stage with her black-clad band, the Machine. Opening with “Two Lungs,” Welch exploded into the chorus. She didn’t need all of the considerable orchestra, including the harp, to vibrate the floor of a completely packed Bowery Ballroom. With the Island Records crew stuffed into the balcony, Welch flitted around the stage, pushing her elbows back and popping her chest out like some mechanical and delicate bird. She repeatedly pointed at us, directly, to emphasize elements of her story, only to cover a smile with her hand. She is emphatic and wilting, if these two things are possible at once.
Welch referring to herself as “Flo,” sang almost every song on her album, Lungs. “Drumming Song” was predictably tribal and elevating, making you think this is the 20-years-later incarnation of Kate Bush. “Cosmic Love” was the best song of the night and closed the set before the encore. Her voice pushed us back in our seats, grabbing the visual to zoom and pan. As much as you try, she is not like anything else. —Geoff Nelson
Tags: Bowery Ballroom, Florence and the Machine, Review
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Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Far - Mercury Lounge - October 26, 2009
The drunk chatter in the crowd as fans eagerly anticipated Far taking the Mercury Lounge stage pretty much revolved around one thing: excitement. “I’ve been waiting 10 years to see this band,” said one 26-year-old crammed into a nook directly in front of the stage. The band hit stride while playing “Water & Solutions,” “Man Overboard” and “Bury White,” three songs off the 1998 fan favorite and emo-heavy album, Water & Solutions. (Also the last disc before the band’s split the following year.)
A couple of songs later, frontman Jonah Montranga explained that he wanted to be in the audience, dancing and sweaty with them—but not crowd-surfing (as a few fans had previously done and tried to help him do). And, as a long segue into “Nestle,” he discussed growing up and having kids, and how parenthood is scary, but also amazing, like when he saw his friend’s young daughter dancing at the previous night’s soundcheck. “Really Here,” another song off Water & Solutions, received a mass crowd sing-along and pit fury similar to that which greeted the earlier songs from that album.
Far then left the stage after one more song, but returned to play another four. Montranga asked the crowd if they still had it in them, and, boy, did they. “Mother Mary” received the most raucous response of all. At one point toward the end of the set, Montranga commented, “We know some of our best ‘New York’ shows have been in New Jersey. And, some of our best ‘New York’ shows have been in Long Island.” But, as he went on to explain, they were in the city now, and this was truly one of their best New York shows. —Kirsten Housel
Photos courtesy of Kirsten Housel
Tags: Far, Mercury Lounge, photos, Review
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Monday, October 26th, 2009
Thursday/Far/Midnight Masses - The Bowery Ballroom - October 25, 2009
Last night’s Bowery Ballroom show boasted an impressive lineup: Thursday, Far and Midnight Masses. The latter is known as a collective of musicians from bands like …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead and Santogold, while Far is known for its highly influential sound and cult following that formed in the ’90s. But the band of the night was definitely Thursday, out of New Brunswick, N.J.
When Thursday played The Bowery just a month ago, they announced that last night’s show would have them playing their entire 2001 Victory Records debut, Full Collapse, the album that took them from playing dingy basements to headlining large tours. From the first chords of the disc’s opener—and unexpected hit single—“Understanding in a Car Crash,” The Bowery Ballroom’s floor was alive with action from the fans. Onstage, singer Geoff Rickly danced around, arms flailing in his perfectly calculated and characteristic way. While it’s a spectacular genre-defining album in its own right, it’s only when played live that the band’s fury is really showcased. “Autobiography of a Nation” and “Cross Out the Eyes” contained blood-curdling yelps and screams that starkly contrasted with the smooth tones of Rickly’s singing voice.
After completing the 42-minute Full Collapse and leaving the stage, Thursday returned to play a handful of songs, including “The Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out (Of Control),” off 2006’s A City by the Light Divided, and “Friends in Armed Forces,” from their most recent release, this year’s Common Existence. Thursday finished by releasing a dozen large black balloons into the air and playing fan favorite “Jet Black New Year.” —Kirsten Housel
(Far plays tonight at Mercury Lounge.)
Photos courtesy of Kirsten Housel
Tags: A City by the Light Divided, Bowery Ballroom, Far, Midnight Masses, photos, Review, Thursday
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Monday, October 26th, 2009
Portugal. The Man - The Bowery Ballroom - October 23, 2009
(Photo: Emily Ibarra)
Following a set of ebullient guitar rock by the Temper Trap, the oddly punctuated Portugal. The Man took the stage as Friday’s headliner at The Bowery Ballroom. The band is led by perhaps the second most well known denizen of Wasilla, Alaska, John Gourley, who plays a big-bodied guitar and sings in a high-pitched voice that could be the love child of Neil Young’s pipes and those of Jamiroquai singer Jay Kay.
Sometimes Miles Davis would perform with his back to the audience. And like a lazy Miles Davis, frontman Gourley oddly spent most of the show with his side to the crowd. Fortunately, like with Davis, it didn’t affect his performance in the slightest. Portugal. The Man’s albums all have different sounds, but their fourth studio effort, The Satanic Satanist, out last July, has earned the band plenty of well-deserved attention. So it was no surprise that much of their set highlighted songs from that disc, including “People Say” (with the crowd singing along), “The Sun,” “Do You” and “Mornings.”
Portugal. The Man—at times accompanied by Judy the fiddler— played plenty of upbeat songs, but they can just as easily go darker. Backed by trippy lights, the band turned jammy and ethereal, with their instrumentals delving into the wide psychedelic swath between the Doors’ moodiness and the liveliness of Santana. They seem like the kind of band you could see two nights in a row and it wouldn’t feel like the same show. And that’s a good thing. —R. Zizmor
Tags: Bowery Ballroom, CMJ Music Marathon, Portugal. The Man, Review, The Temper Trap
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Sunday, October 25th, 2009
Deer Tick - The Bowery Ballroom - October 22, 2009
One of These Guys Is Not in the Band
Not to be confused with Deerhoof, Deerhunter or the Dear Hunter, Deer Tick, led by the ferociously talented, no-longer-mustachioed John McCauley, is a band rooted in Providence, R.I., with a sound rooted somewhere safely below the Mason Dixon Line. They’ve put out two excellent albums—War Elephant is more subdued than its livelier follow-up, Born on Flag Day. But when heard live, the recorded material, like a fine wine, opens up into something bigger. McCauley has an engaging—if not drunken—stage presence, and with his vivid songwriting and lived-in vocals, even when things go off the rails, it’s still raw and real and never manufactured. It’s a refreshing change. And more than that, it’s a lot of fun.
Headlining a CMJ Music Marathon show on Thursday at The Bowery Ballroom, Deer Tick, wearing Jason Vorhees-style goalie masks, finally took the stage at 12:15 and opened with a soulful, a cappella “Dirty Dishes.” “How you doin’ tonight?” asked McCauley, greeting the sold-out crowd. “Yo, tonight rules!” From then on, the band played nearly two hours of original material dotted with plenty of stage banter, a hard-driving version of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?,” a sped-up, guitar-driven take on Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline” and possibly the first ever appearance of “Air Force Porn,” when a fleet of paper airplanes made from porno-magazine pages descended upon the audience.
Onstage, they guys in Deer Tick smoke, drink and carry on—they even threw glitter and shot Silly String into the crowd. That party atmosphere was infectious—the good kind—which carried over to the concertgoers, who stomped, sang, danced and clapped along. Late in the set, when McCauley invited “everyone who wants to come onstage to come onstage,” the band was joined by at least 30 people who were drunk enough or needy enough to do so. As Deer Tick played “City of Sin” and the rollicking love song “These Old Shoes,” several girls draped themselves across the frontman, who didn’t seem to mind.
After clearing the stage (“I need some alone time”), McCauley performed several songs accompanied by just his guitar and harmonica. When the full band eventually joined him, many in what was left of the crowd pogoed up and down with sparklers held aloft to the strains of Deer Tick’s traditional closer, a cover of “La Bamba.” And then the house lights came on, revealing a floor littered with cups, glitter and porn. —R. Zizmor
(Deer Tick plays the songs of the Sex Pistols on Halloween at Brooklyn Bowl.)
Tags: Bowery Ballroom, CMJ Music Marathon, Deer Tick, Review
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Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Atlas Sound - Music Hall of Williamsburg - October 21, 2009
(Photo: Diana Wong)
“The show’s completely off the rails now,” joked Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox, performing last night at Music Hall of Williamsburg as his solo side project, Atlas Sound. Somehow a simple broken guitar string had brought the set to a standstill, initiating a chain reaction of antics: Inexplicable song requests from the crowd (“Rock Around the Clock,” “Monster Mash”), a series of groan-inducing jokes and Cox’s decision to strike a few poses for all the hungry photographers in the crowd eager to snap away. “This is my socially conscious pose,” said Cox, strumming some Dylan chords and staring introspectively at the ceiling.
“Did you think it was pretty professional before all that shit happened?” Cox later inquired. Come to think of it, Atlas Sound’s set had been pretty professional up to that point. Cox (wearing a very sensible brown suit) had started the show with a haunting version of “My Halo” from Atlas Sound’s newest album, Logos (just released on Tuesday), his voice strong and stark, accompanied simply by keyboard. Joined shortly thereafter by his backing band, Atlas Sound played meticulous renditions of songs like “Walkabout” and “Sheila,” easily recreating the ethereal moments within their spacey, densely layered psych-shoegaze.
Later on, Cox partially chalked his “derailment” up to nerves—noting that the retro space-pop masters Broadcast, who had performed a transfixing opening set accompanied by trippy 1960s-era video art, were a tough act to follow. Though they were impressive, could Cox truly have such shakable confidence? After all, when he returned solo for an encore—creating a looped guitar and harmonica sample, walking around the stage as he played both guitar and drums, and timing his singing between different mikes—Bradford Cox was able to personally embody Atlas Sound. It was a complete song, nearly effortless. For moments like this, hopefully Cox will come to give himself more credit. I must say, when he was able to focus, it was certainly quite professional. —Alena Kastin
Tags: Atlas Sound, Bradford Cox, Broadcast, CMJ Music Marathon, Deerhunter, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Review
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