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Every once in a great while, the stars are aligned, shit comes together, and you get a show like tonight's: four of my favorite bands on a really strong, really coherent bill. Credit is due to Ernesto from Shore Leave, who are celebrating their CD release tonight. First up is my beloved Tristan Da Cunha. After the last couple of times I saw them, it's a thrill just to be able to hear them do a complete set. They start with "World of Rubber," which is Tom's favorite of their songs and a wildly veering workout of a composition. (Like pretty much all of their songs.) I'm standing right by the stage, so I get an instrument-heavy/vocal-light mix, but since I love everything about this band, there's nothing my attention can be turned to that isn't good. Ernie's guitar is so fast and so freaky that even the most familiar of their songs have surprises when I focus on it. Tonight's set is mostly newer material, so I'm confused and delighted. There's also a Dead Kennedys cover, which is kind of soothing by contrast. They finish up, as it is their custom to do, with Ernie switching to drums and Steve playing guitar and singing, and it never fails to amaze me that a person can be so inhumanly good at two completely different instruments.
Night Rally are next—See? See what an awesome bill this is?—and it's Devin's birthday, so he seems kind of happy and flustered. (And his tiara keeps slipping off when he dances around.) Tonight's set is largely focused on "the hits," and there are cheers from the packed crowd each time a song starts, but we do also get one brand new one. It's a strong and vivid composition and, as promised, Farhad says "Bop" a lot, but I think I'll need to hear it a few more times to really get it. I'm very glad, though, that they're writing more material that weaves their very different vocal styles together, since I think those songs are where they shine. No triptych tonight, live or recorded, but it does take up rather a lot of space in a set, and having heard the whole thing together, I almost wouldn't want to hear one or two pieces of it alone.
Shore Leave are having a very celebratory set, with the CD release and the addition of their new bassist, "mega-hottie Charles." (I quote, approvingly, from the Noise Board.) Their set tonight is a masterpiece of structuring. They start off with one of the catchiest songs, and I feel really pulled in. They proceed through the songs on which Afshin plays bass as a four-piece (though I've heard talk of a two-bass configuration on these songs that I imagine will add a huge sound that I can't wait to hear), then bring Charles onstage. He's got great chemistry with the band, the addition of a bass line to some of these songs thickens them up nicely, and it frees Afshin to do some fancier things on the keyboards. They hardly needed fancier keyboard lines; these songs are swimming in complicated guitar parts delicately woven together. As a lifelong fan of unnecessary complexity, I approve wholeheartedly. It's also very handy to have that freedom when both guitars suddenly cut out simultaneously in mid-song. The band sounds a little thin with no guitars, but it's kind of fun to see them frantically plugging and unplugging cables, and both of them get back online relatively quickly. The set continues well-structured, higher-energy rockers alternating with more stretched out and contemplative fare (much like one of their songs in macrocosm), and ends with a moment of pure musical loveliness.
Ho-Ag's newish bassist is out of town tonight, so they've dusted off the old one for this show. We, the fans (who love the new bassist a lot, don't get us wrong) are delighted to have another opportunity to see them with Dave Dines. He's so tasteful, which seems an odd commodity in these brash, baroque masterpieces, but he's perfectly on whether he's blazing through a fast, fierce part or dropping occasional single notes into a spacier section. And the drummer! It occurs to me during Ho-Ag's set that this has been an incredible night for high-quality, high-risk drumming. Ho-Ag's set emphasizes the melodic side of their catchy+noisy+ambitious equation more than the last time I saw them, and I'm kind of pleased; it's the balance in that formula that I think is their greatest gift to posterity, and even at their most tuneful, they're still plenty weird and wild. We get a fantastically complicated and danceable new song, and there's even an encore; they claim not to have rehearsed another song, but I can't quite credit the claims, since it's so smooth and strong.
