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Harris has me with the first song. Their music is ambitious in most all of the ways I love. The rhythms are complicated and confusing and they hold them together beautifully. The crunchy guitars are raucous and rocking. And the vocalists push the limits of what their voices can do. The bassist sings lead, and if these songs are a little light on melody at times, he's at least doing a lot of interesting things with his voice. One of the guitarists does screaming punk lead vocals on a couple of songs; a whole set of this would annoy me, but here it's an interesting accent and another ingredient in the mix.
The Information are a much more melodic and song-y sort of band. The drum parts are simpler, but the percussive bass lines contrast and complement them to make up some good rhythm together. The crisp, chiming lead guitar and New Wave synth lines give a bit of an '80s feel, but there's enough thick, raunchy rhythm guitar to keep it from getting soulless and mechanical-sounding. I can't hear the vocals as well as I'd like; when I can, I'm impressed by the lead singer's dramatic range, as he initially seems kind of bland and affectless, but then switches into passionate overdrive for the very next song. The backing vocals are also good for adding auxiliary guts.
The Model Sons organized this night: rented the room, booked the bands, worked like hell to promote, and now have the pleasure of playing to a very crowded Middle East downstairs, so they're having a bit of a Sally Field moment. We like them; we really like them! Where in all that they found time to practice, I have no idea, but they are awesomely tight, and even have a new song to play for us. Their sound mixes punk urgency and metal passion without the excesses of either, adds gleefully shouted vocals, and puts it all into rhythms and song structures that make my head hurt, in a good way. The drummer is AMAZING; he is a machine, playing outrageously hard parts wicked fast, without hesitation or error, and he hits hard, with a vicious scowl that seems to say that these drums have been BAD and must be PUNISHED! (Later, he's a total asshole during the Dolls' set, pushing in front of us and then loudly talking during all the quiet parts. This doesn't change the fact that he's an incredible drummer; if anything, it just makes me want more to see him ONstage, where I can't hear him talk.) They do the all-star guest thing on their penultimate song, and wind up less beer-soaked than the last time I saw them.
The Good North are next. They serve up a series of anthemic, Brit-poppy rockers, interspersed with incomprehensible mumbling where the between-songs banter would go. The singing is great, clear and passionate--I always love it when the singer winds up clinging to the mic stand to hold himself up while he wails. The drumming is supple and subtle and might seem great if we had not just had a clinic in what it is possible to do with a drum kit.
The Dresden Dolls are the last-minute fill-in headliners for Runner and The Thermodynamics, sidelined by injury. They may be sick and surprised, but they are called to rawk, and rawk they will. This means that, in addition to their normal diet of bittersweet poetry set to achingly lovely melodies, they throw in a little red meat for the crowd, in the form of a piano and drums transcription of "War Pigs". Yeah. THAT "War Pigs"! It's brilliant: Amanda captures the familiar essence of all the classic riffs on the piano and out-wails Ozzy at his best, and Brian is a metalhead from way back, so the drums are perfect. The rest of the set is distinguished primarily by a lot of playing around with variations on the piano parts in most of their songs, making this a special treat for the Dolls fans among us.
What a great night!
