all words: Svetlana
all photos: Brandon Hirsch
If you remember, it snowed pretty damn hard on Saturday. All day. So much so that it really did require you to really want to see (preferably both) bands playing the Black Cat that night to motivate and get up from your couch, out of the safety of your warm, warm living room and your fully loaded DVR and into the cold, cold night. (which may explain why this show did not sell out when, I fully expected it to, and I have gotten pretty good at guessing this kind of stuff over the years)
But if you did, in my opinion, it was absolutely worth it.
The rest of you weather chickens and band hype naysayers-we'll see you next time, I guess.
Lets start at the start then:
Crystal Antlers opened the show. They play that particular kind of LSD laced, ominously fuzzy psychedelia that seems to be all the rage these days, all Velvet Underground feedbacks and booming bass and organ lines, all the while hiding pretty great pop songs underneath all that mess. As a result, the Long Beach based band has been buzzier than a swarm of bees in early 09 and I have been hearing all sorts of ominous threats about their sound being so big, so loud, so relentless, so so so everything, it will chew me up whole and spit me out on the side of the road (in the best imaginable way, of course). Which, I guess, would work pretty well in a smaller venue.
But on the mainstage, the 5 of them (double percussion (one shirtless, and one wearing sunglasses at night), bass, guitar and a hilariously serious girl on keyboards) sounded good, great even, and certainly loud, but the effect faded with every step you took further away from the stage. Ideally, I'd like to see them play the smallest room known to man where only people brave enough to not escape the killer reverbing would be, but life is not perfect.
Then it was BIG PINK TIME.
The smoke came out, the light show went a blast, the asymmetrical haircuts were adjusted, the ego landed.
There is a LOT to love about this band (all those anthemmy songs, all that throwback 4AD aesthetic, all those memories of when you were too young (or were you?) to be a proper pop-mope-goth that come flooding by every time "Too Young To Love" comes on) and there is a LOT to be potentially annoyed about (the seemingly insane self-assuredness (cockiness is a dirty word), the anthemmy songs written to be so anthemmy so well that you may wonder whether your yearnings are being exploited by them, the arena rock attitude of it all, even the name of their album...).
So, yes, you have to weigh in the good and the bad, the catchy and the contrived and what you decide is only yours to decide...
BUT HELL IF IT DOESN'T ALL WORK.
I will go on record now that I had the best time at this show.
Whatever they were selling (and trust me, they're selling it) I was buying. I was lapping it up with a spoon, licking the bowl, coming back for seconds and more.
You could almost not see them at all: just flashes of ripperd shirts, skinny arms, guitar swings, and on occasion, the killer red lips of their (stone cold fox, all cliches be damned) girl drummer with preying mantis arms flailing all around. It was all smoke and mirrors, in the best sense.
All the "Brief History of Love" hits were there (+ I think, and someone let me know if I was just delusional, an Otis Redding cover) which started out nice and mid tempo, just enough to get you in the groove, slowed down for all those couples at the show holding onto each other for dear life and then burst into "Dominoes" at the very end resulting in the inevitable scream-and-dance-along that left everyone happy and satisfied and getting their money's worth.
No encore, thank God.
Just what you came for, nothing more, nothing less, and you know what, sometimes having your expectations fully met is the best thing that can happen to you at a show (other XL/Matador/4AD artists-please take note)
They looked the part, they sounded GREAT and TIGHT and TITE and just (superficially) under-enthused enough for you not to think that their whole concept is a sham and secretly, deep down, they made you wish (admit it!) that you were 18 in 1989 in Manchester and they played your prom.
Good times.
Previously in Live DC:
- 2/13: LiveDC: George Clinton & The Parliament-Funkadelic @ 930 Club
- 2/13: LiveDC: Veronica Falls/ Brilliant Colors @ Black Cat
- 2/13: LIVE DC: Steve Aoki/ Datsik/ Alvin Risk @ Fillmore
- 2/13: LiveDC: The Darkness @ 930 Club
- 2/9: LiveDC: Theophilus London @ 930 Club
- 2/9: Best Weekend Bets
- 2/8: LiveDC: Kathleen Edwards @ 930 Club
- 2/8: LiveDC: Thurston Moore/ Kurt Vile @ Black Cat
- 2/8: LiveDC: Thurston Moore/ Kurt Vile @ Black Cat
- 2/7: LiveDC: Demetri Martin @ Warner Theatre
God loves a cheerful giver.
no pictures of the drummer? only being able to see her fuschia lips and eye makeup through the fog was pretty cool.
i was not into the crystal antlers. their songs didn't have a beginning or and end, it all just mushed together into a really annoying jam session.
and the tots? a couple brought their two daughters, both of which were (from the looks of it) under nine.
i don't know how the crowd behind me was, but up front there were people actually dancing, with their entire bodies.
awesomeawesomeawesomeshow.
ok, maybe I should have gotten off my ass, but Super Mario and Bored To Death felt like much better options when looking out the window.
^ Amanda must not like music, I think I saw you frowning through the entire opening set.
Crystal Antlers were great, the crowd showed them absolutely no love though. It's like when there is energy on stage, people forget that they are in one of the cradle's of hardcore punk.
The Big Pink - EHHH, I thought I was going to drown in their hair gel if I wasn't already asphyxiated by their stage smoke, or had an epileptic seizure due to the constant strobe light. The music was unmoving and I wanted to give the bassist a buzzcut.
The amount of Brit's and 30somethings that came out for them, was AWESOME though.
also,
southern California locals for life!
@Amanda, the fog was an impenetrable barrier when it came to shooting the drummer. None of my photos turned out.
Great writeup, Svetlana.
Brodey, I tried my best to enjoy the Crystal Antlers' set, I liked what little I'd heard by them before, it just didn't translate live. And I'm going to take a wild guess that you were one of the two people shouting "more. More!" at the end of their set.
And that wasn't gel in anyone's hair, that was oil, from their heads, because they are all pretty scuzzy dudes. I got a close look later that evening, and really wanted to work some shampoo magic.
Brandon, I understand. The rest of your pictures are great.
Fucking classic. Svetlana, that was "These Arms." Unfortunately, they did not play "Stop the World." The bassist told me they don't like that song. Weird.
Too Young to Love
Frisk
At Was with the Sun
Velvet
Crystal Visions
Count Backwards
Tonight
These Arms
Dominos
And seriously, to the Big Pink haters: really? Derivative? WTF? I'm sorry, we're post-everything at this point. You find me someone on the hype-wagon who sounds "new" and I'll give you a CD of 70 minutes of songs that have done it before. But for them to spring fully-formed with four of the best singles of the year, a duet with Florence, one of the best 7" covers of the year, and a brilliant, reverential cover song executed, along with the rest of their set, in sonic perfection? Nice. These guys are great, and I feel sorry for the poor dumb bastards who decide to not like them for their own pre-conceived bullshit reasons. It may be a guilty pleasure to sing "Dominos," but it's a pleasure nonetheless.
Amanda, touché and respect, the set did start off slow, but they started to tear it up.
William, I think I'm the only Big Pink hater here on this thread. And I'd love to take you up on that 70 minute CD jig.
That cover of "These Arms of Mine" (that's the name of the song) was awful. Like, abysmally bad. I seriously listened to the original on the way home just to try to gouge out my mind's eye and the sights and sounds of them butchering it. Dude's voice was severely flat and the lack of musical accompaniment on that particular song made it all the more painful. Also PS, please do yourselves a favor and go listen to Otis Redding. He is truly the "King of Soul."
Acoustic "Velvet" in the alley behind Black Cat.
I had tickets but got stuck working saturday night. Thanks for the write-up, I agree about the hype-confusion-cheese-vortex created by Big Pink but am glad to hear they actually delivered a great performance. If they are truly the commercial band described, they will be back soon, and I will tell work to F themselves if I get scheduled on the same night again.
nice write of svet!
i saw them on thursday and friday in new york. they were brilliant both times. also, the otis redding cover was BEYOND BRILLIANT both times. like really, really gorgeous and such a perfect addition to a flawless set.
i will say that the bass player wore that shirt all 3 nights. umm. wows. gross. i bet it could stand by itself and walk around by the end of all that.