Brightest Young Things

all (OUTSTANDING) photos: Yacouba Tanou

Your form seems so familiar standing next to me. God, it’s been years since we’ve done this. Maybe a decade since I felt this way. You look nervously over your shoulder as if you can feel the energy radiating through me. You instinctively know what’s coming next – some things never change. I look at the slope of your form and start to formulate my game plan. The only thing giving me pause is that you are wearing a nice crisp t-shirt I had given you not long ago. The color looks good on you.

I am going to rush you with all my weight and force you careening into everyone around you and then I am going to do the same to four strangers standing next to me. I am not a small man. It won’t go unnoticed. This is what I must do.

Yet it only takes place in my sad, depraved mind.

Instead, I step slightly back and admire the foul-throated Welshman spewing bile at me from four feet away.

His veins are popping so far out of his massive cranium that I am happy to be holding a glass with me - should the need arise to catch any fountains of blood from an eruption of course. Luckily, I am not standing at the side of the room that will be threatened with the very real possibility of vomit a half hour later.

Why didn’t I rush you my friend, just like old times? Why didn’t I send the entire room into the frenzy it so craved? Why didn't I knock the insanely tall guy that felt compelled to stand in front of me into the monitors, as I would have at the old 930? Even the gawky figures on the stage begged that the collected move and shake and come to life, ranking us only a smidge above the hated Parisians. It wasn’t always like this. DC would have lost their shit at a show like this when I was a kid, but I am no longer a kid (as my sore calves and knees from pogoing in place would attest) and DC no longer dances (as has been reported far and wide - an exception should be noted for the fellow that bassist Kelson Mathias affectionately referred to as “dancing like his Dad” while noting an obvious family resemblance.)

What we can and will do is offer our faces up for proper melting and thanks be to Future Of The Left, they were only too willing to oblige.

Sporting what they termed “Coney Island tans” following their slot at the Siren Fest on Saturday, they arrived too late to sound check, so we are subjected to the most dreaded of performance killers – running through monitor levels to a full room. Yet somehow, the power trio turns it on it’s head and actually makes the entire endeavor not only enjoyable, but an indispensable part of the show. I despise stage banter but Mathias and front man Andy Falkous hit so many comedic high notes (the banter is funny and cutting as often as their lyrics, which is damn near 100%) that they are just in admonishing a heckler late in the show for painting himself into a “joke corner” much to everyone’s chagrin.

It only takes a quick collar/elbow lock up of infectious bass and balls to the walls drumming to get our full attention and then the jagged guitar and spewing blast of humor and violence from Falkous leaves us hooked. Game on. And these fuckers mean it.

Much hand clapping and shout outs to Satan ensue and nary a second goes by when I don’t want to create a pile of sweaty humanity as a meager sacrifice at the foot of the stage for these rock gods to devour. I could go through the setlist – they only play Manchasm from the poppier selections – but that would be missing the point. Everything they touch rocks your ass to the ground and back up again and leaves you embarrassed to have even thought of writing a song. I could add a sinister giggle to their implication as to the personal hygiene habits of a certain local newspaper scribe’s mother as it relates to one of my favorite wrestling tag-teams of the 80s – but that would be missing the point. Everything they say is a mix of dangerous humor. I could lament that somehow this has yet to become the favorite band of every 15 year-old boy in the world and they should be melting a stadium full of faces – but that would actually be the point.

Instead, I will just enjoy seeing them up close as they perspire all over me. It burns. It burns.

The show ends in the way every guitar band should end it – sans encore. The boys leave little doubt as one can barely focus on Mathias and his Michael Jackson impression (his third of the night) as Falkous deliberately moves Jack Egglestone’s drum kit piece by piece and re-assembles it in various spots on the stage. Egglestone never misses a beat and adds a ragged fury to the proceedings.

It’s funny and it’s intense and then it’s over.

Previously in Live DC:

• 5/24: LiveDC: The Adicts @ RNR Hotel
• 5/24: LiveDC: The Donkeys @ Black Cat
• 5/23: LiveDC: The Barr Brothers w/ Kishi Bashi @ The Hamilton
• 5/23: LiveDC: Damien Jurado @ Black Cat
• 5/23: Report: Soundbites 2012
• 5/22: LiveDC: Spirit Animal @ Red Palace
• 5/22: LiveDC: Astra Via @ Black Cat
• 5/22: LiveDC: Father John Misty @ Rock & Roll Hotel
• 5/22: LiveDC: Drive-By Truckers and Lucinda Williams @ Merriweather
• 5/22: Photos: Summer Camp takes the "Ladies of Town" Drag Show