all photos: Paul Goodman
all words: Peter Heyneman
Sometimes you want food that has a delicate and expressive range of flavors and sometimes you want nachos. You may be thinking, "What does this have to do with the alt-country-stubble-rock show at the Black Cat last thursday?" Fair question. Actually it is far more likely you are thinking: "I can't believe this asshole is about to compare a loud and simple music experience to cheesy-chip apps--that's just most obvious comparison to ever happen!" Well, guess what readers you totally lost the game because SOMETIMES ALSO you don't want some fancy analogy with the originality and the multiple resonances because you haven't slept much and you're stressed out and want to switch your brain off and comfort yourself with comparing southern roots-pop to deliciously bland microwavable food piles so that's what's going on in this article and the door is thataway.
I missed the first band Mean Creek by microseconds, but a leathery and jaded friend told me he teared up girlishly when they played a murder ballad about the singer's grandfather glowering down from heaven or something--so that sounds kind of like a vegetable which is welcome to go on my nachos if it doesn't get all domineering and try to edge out the cheese monopoly.
I caught the Features, who I liked a lot. They were the good part of the nachoey taste heap, the top part where the fact of the band's tightness and enthusiasm for stomping out Dr. Dog/KOL barn bangers utterly trumps the rather cheap and 'overt' ingredients. They are from Nashville, which I love because it's very similar to DC (similar massive boring tourist culture segregated by distance and accessibility from the sizable local alt paradise lurking under and preying on the overclass) but also because musicians from there always always know how to play their instruments so damn well. In a town where music is unabashedly an industry it must be impossible for musicians to retain that charming 'I never practice' stand-still-and-munch-your-bottom-lip indie rock authenticity that us Yankees specialize in--meanwhile Matt Pelham jumped on his amp a lot and the keyboard player was hopping about before the first loud organ note even started ringing and the drummer smacked the shit out of his kit and shook his hair and yum. They did a lot of stepping back from the mics and all going ooOOOOOooOOOOwooooo at the same time like Dr. Dog fronting Drive By Truckers. Everyone really liked them and they did not cause indigestion.
The Whigs though were the part of the Rock Nachos that empirically is the same as the first part of the Rock Nachos but somehow is much harder to swallow. The trio came onstage to the Braves tomahawk chop song which was perfect because everyone who likes to pretend they are Southern could do the hand motion and then the show was like a baseball game! They immediately started peeling the paint from the walls with crisp arena-ready beats and guitars, bellowing out the choruses and saying the word 'Vibration' like this: vi-BRAY-shaaaaaaaaaaaaawn.
Here are some pull quotes if you are a publicist:
The Whigs may cause erections in people that think Band of Horses play too soft like pussies!
Slim...overly-manicured bassplayerbeard...and...guitar throttling!
The Whigs are like functional alcoholism--both will make you call your exboyfriend at 3am to taunt him for becoming a deputy sheriff and try to get him to drive up from Durham to ravish you!
Also will make you dance furiously whether you are a 22 year old woman wearing a Mom vest weirdly or a middle aged bald guy with expensive glasses, because either way you aren't really happy with what's going on so go go go!
The Boston Bloviator says: Greasy alt-country played generally at high speeds, but with sad gray eyes staring at you from the bottom of a bottle of feelings. Yeah!
Kings of Leon say: These guys opened for us, and probably blew us off the stage!
Your younger sister says: The amps were too loud and Kings of Leon has nicer jeans!
I say:
Whatever was fun, and it did exactly what it claimed to do, so enough with the bullshit. I mean it was a total rock band, what do you want from me, blank verse? All I know is: the next time the Whigs come to town, and you're all tense and nervous and you need to relax, I would 100% recommend that you get some nachos from Food For Thought they will definitely not overly influence your opinion of the night in any major way.
Some more features photos:
Some more photos of The Whigs:
Previously in Live DC:
- 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
- 2/7: LiveDC: Augustana/ Graffiti6 @ 930 Club
- 2/6: LiveDC: All Things Go Presents: Reptar/ Casual Curious/ Fort Lean @ Gibson Guitar Showroom
- 2/6: LiveDC: TYCHO/ Beacon @ RNR Hotel
- 2/6: LiveDC: The Kills / Jeff The Brotherhood @ 9:30 Club
God loves a cheerful giver.
i really enjoyed the features. they were adorable. the whigs came on and i thought maybe they were just warming up at first and would get in to something good. but then i realized that wasn't the case, just spaced out, became uninterested and left. not a fav.
Mean Creek's last song was epic. The Features were better than the Whigs. Quite a few people left after Features. You should compare the Whigs to that water you drank all night long instead. Since when do people go to rock shows at the Black Cat and drink water?
You don't get a lot of accessible analogies about nachos these days. Nice.
Reading Peter is like eating nachos at a baseball game ... without suffering the consequences
oh there are consequences.
the features are OUTSTANDING.
i saw them a million years ago, and then they got dropped by their record label or something and had to stop playing for a while, and then they came back. but they are so so good.
also, lovely pictures!