Brightest Young Things

Photos: Meghan Louttit
Words: Denman

Sadly, too many years ago now when I was still booking at the Warehouse, I received a call about setting up a show for Kylesa. That was all I really needed to know to say yes, however, they were bringing another band with them. I’d never heard of this other band, but knew that they at least had the credentials of being on Hydra Head. Unfortunately I had to arrive late the day of the show, and was only able to catch the last few songs of their set. Luckily, the label was nice enough to send along a promo, pre-release of their first record that simply said, “Big Business - Album art to appear here”.

By the next week the entire staff and I were obsessed with this album, Head for the Shallow, and apparently we weren’t the only ones. Soon Big Business had taken the entire country by storm, and I’ve never seen them play a set that has disappointed.

I arrived for last Thursday’s show at the Rock N Roll Hotel painfully early, and pulled up a space at the bar to converse with friends. Eventually a crowd began to trickle in, and before I knew it, the opening band, Tweak Bird, had subtly taken the stage.

They shot straight into a sonic assault of heavy low-end guitar and rumbling drums, punctuated by the waves of a gong that rose steam-like, to a near ear imploding level. And when the first song finally dropped, we took off like a rocket bound for a universe full of arena psych rock.

I could compare them to Wolf Mother, but since that band is nothing but a pain to me, I won’t. Tweak Bird was clearly going for that 70’s, UK, arena-rock sound, with a hard rocking center running through it. I’d rather place them somewhere between Black Cobra and newer Wildildlife.

Tweak Bird was definitely of the internal persuasion, but what they lacked in crowd connection, (all the way to having their faces completely covered by masses of unruly hair), they made up for with intensity. The duo constantly annihilated the crowd with technically proficient proto-doom riffs and licks.

Though rarely stopping, they did at one point to play a game with the crowd that consisted of saying, “Hey, guess what?” then changing the variable each time before running back into the fray with the sound of a hundred Valhalla horses. After they had successfully won over the crowd, they let the crest fall to a moment of deep psych before ever so slowly churning back towards a heavier sound.

Staying in the same mellow zone, Tweak Bird oozed into the song “Spaceships.” They wrapped the last two songs up with a fine balance of thunderclaps and vision quests. And, of course, they went out with a gong.

After what seemed like an eternity, Big Business finally took the stage to the jubilant rejoicing of the crowd. Starting off slow and steady, the drums crept up faster and faster until they had attained the weight of anvils. Meanwhile, the guitar and bass twirled around them with bird-like chirps before all three crashed into “Just as the Day Was Dawning,” which unleashed a hypnotic pummeling onto the audience. With this under their belts, they hopped back to the beginning of their first album to hammer out “O.G.”

Never a band for talking, they kept a machine like focus throughout the entire set. The newer material they segued into was much heavier and had a very calculated ambling quality to it. Big Business has definitely long since shed any remains of their Karp skin in favor of a much more unique and complex song writing style. The new Big Business can be found at midnight, under a long lost gothic bridge, buried in a London fog. All of this gave songs such as “Hands Up,” a richer quality.

The fact that the vocals, though effectively echo laden, could have been a bit louder mattered very little as they broke into a version of “Another Fourth of July…Ruined” that was lost in the rainforest desperately trying to find the jungle drums in the distance. Eerie whispers carried the crowd into the next song, however, for most of the set, the cannon-fire of drums was used to vault from one place to the next.

Big Business left the crowd with a long, epic tome that was so heavy, in fact, that it required the support of Tweak Bird to hold it up. And I will leave you with the choral refrain from that ancient tale:

“Have you been to Africa? I have.

It’s beautiful this time of year.”

Indeed.

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