Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Whigs
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Slim's
Better than: Beating the Devil's tattoo -- whatever that means.
Leather jackets? Check. Too much fog machine? I can still smell it. Glee-d-out girls snapping cam-phone pics every 1.5 seconds? You betcha. Burly rock dudes hitting on less-burly-dudes' birds? Of course. Drugs, alcohol, and indoor tobacco consumption? Hell yes.
All this and more went down at last night's sold-out, hometown Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show. It was a performance that proved enjoyable as the epitome of a certain kind of rock 'n' roll -- the kind that is predictable, indulgent, monotonous, derivative, and absurd. Amplifiers outnumbered band members onstage. Strobe lights blasted us into epilepsy. Climaxes lasted days. Rock stars tossed around fancy guitars like Fred Flintstone threw out half-eaten poultry legs. The band even played its fuzzy, one-trick songs sloppily at times, which is saying something, because BRMC's grungy, atmospheric blues-rock ain't Mozart.
But no one goes to a BRMC show looking for art-fag cred or Master's thesis material or musical virtuosity. They go looking for fun. And last night, with all the hipsters elsewhere and the only handlebar moustaches belonging to big dudes who didn't look so interested in irony, some serious fucking fun was had. The S.F.-via-L.A. power trio of Robert Turner, Peter Hayes, and new addition Leah Shapiro (known heretofore as the Raveonette's touring drummer) rocked out for two goddamn hours. Two hours! And only during a few songs did the crowd start to get twitchy with their personal electronics. (I got twitchy way more, but I was sober, which is decidedly the wrong way to experience a BRMC show.)
This band has been around for about ten years now, producing six albums with almost zero critical acclaim to show for it. The trio's new record, entitled Beat the Devil's Tattoo (in BRMC's usual, cryptically-dark-but-not-quite-meaningful lyrical style) is, however, promising, or at least more promising than their last five-and-a-half albums. Last night reinforced that impression: The new title track and "Conscience Killer" burst out with fresh energy from the boring parts of the back catalogue. "Bad Blood" was one of the best numbers of the night. Some in the mild crowd even sang along to Beat the Devil's songs, which is sorta impressive considering the album was only released yesterday.
Because it was that kind of rock show, BRMC sounded mostly like shit and was sometimes a pleasure to watch. Neither Turner's nor Hayes' vocals filtered much through the muddy soup of four guitar amps, who knows how many effects pedals, and a distorted bass blasting through two amp stacks. Shapiro's drums sounded way too thin, which was an achievement considering how hard she seemed to be pounding them. But whatever. Turner buckled and bent over his bass, writhed around the stage, and even went on a field trip into the crowd at the end. Hayes' dark curls fell all around an expressive face. He seemed to be singing extremely hard, even if we couldn't hear it well. Excepting the strobe lights -- which I grew to hate -- much of the stage was often left draped in black (surprise!), with white lights focused on the band members' faces. Hard to photograph, cool to look at.
Some of the best moments came during BRMC's oldest songs, such as "Red Eyes and Tears" and my personal debut-record fave, "Spread Your Love." But even though the new songs don't come from all that different a place stylistically, they're somehow better. I still can't really take a band called Black Rebel Motorcycle Club seriously -- the name sounds like a bad caricature, and too often its music has also -- but I'll happily settle for enjoying BRMC at a theatrical rock show once in a while.
Critics Notebook:
1. BRMC are playing at Slim's again tonight.
2. I didn't ignore The Whigs, I missed them completely. Review them yourself in the comments section.
3. Yes, I know the BRMC name comes from The Wild One, the Marlon Brando film. It's still ridiculous.
4. About halfway through this show, I was expecting to write a scathing review of it. Conceptually, BRMC's whole schtick is atrocious. Couple that with sloppy playing and a set that sometimes dragged, and how could I forgive them? Quite simply, I caught myself enjoying it. Those boys and girl played their fucking hearts out, and they put on a fun show.
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