I was iffy about the show at first. It was mostly over; I’d missed the Heartpills and most of Crankshaft. Through the front window I could see the gray cash-box lying on a table. Behind it was an antsy looking gentleman, twisting uncomfortably on his stool, trying to get a look at what was going on behind him while keeping his body facing the door. So the show wasn’t free and they were still charging despite it being well over half done. I only had six bucks on me (is it just me or does “bucks” sound a lot better following cash amounts in multiples of five? Or is that crazy talk? ) so I knew even if I could swing the cover I wouldn’t be able to buy a drink and that would SUCK(!)

I was about to turn around when a tall fella with bulging eyes met my gaze and said “hey” with a kind of inflection on the end that suggested there were more words coming.The salutation kind of hung there and I squinted at him, thinking maybe I knew him and the pause was him awaiting recognition. I was a little out of sorts due to some of the previous days’ indulgences (raiding of various chemical stockpiles, all that) but I guessed after a few moments I did not know him and he was just being friendly so I smiled and asked him what the show cost, he told me $5, I grunted, he vouched for the band, and I went in (hangovers and comedowns leave me precarious and suggestible.) I was a bit on edge so, with the distant chiming of hallucinatory paranoia ringing in my ears, I opted for a seat slightly out of the way, towards the back. I settled in for a show.

4onthefloor came out. I thought the lead singer looked a little like a slacker rabbi, not just because he had an awesome beard and long curly hair that was trimmed just above his brow, but also because the little bald spot at the very top off his head looked like a peach colored yarmulka. I say slacker just because he was wearing a tee-shirt and blue jeans, which would seem non-typical Rabbi regalia given the seriousness of the office as I understand it, but really such a characterization is most likely archaic and narrow minded, and anyway why shouldn’t a rabbi dress comfortably? Anyway, he quoted some Amateur Love into the mic as a mini-sound check so I liked him right away.

Gabriel Douglas

Over the course of the next hour and a half they unleashed one hell of a torrent of animal energy onto the medium-small sized but enthusiastic audience. The hairy lead man had the voice of a banshee on steroids. His voice was good at normal range, and his odd hand gestures were captivating, but when he would rear back to let out a howl with his eyes staring wildly into the crowd swaying drunkenly beneath him, a still would fall across the room. Then his mouth would spring open, his bared teeth glinting through the tangle of beard and the holy sound would wash over room, the roar of a lion who’s spent the last year ingesting nothing but dry ice and whiskey.

I looked around me as the set moved along. All the volume and hubris emanating from the stage was causing strange things to happen to the room. The air was becoming heavy, perhaps infused with some trans-linguistic chemical produced by the pile-driving bass drum, or the slide guitar’s thunderous ripping sound, or the wail of a mouth harp, or maybe one of Gabriel’s rugged howls (that’s the singer’s name) I can’t be sure but something was beginning to infiltrate the atmosphere. I could see bright sparks snapping at the corners of my vision and my hands were getting heavy, becoming hard to lift. I wanted a drink.

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As the band tore into a cover of Smokestack Lightnin’ (the tune that introduced the riff based song to rock n’ roll, hallelujah!) somewhere up ahead a young woman climbed on top of her bar stool to take a picture with her phone. Her streaming golden hair she tossed to one side then the other as she steadied the right leg underneath her, and then the left, and slowly lifted herself to full height. I was barely able to keep myself upright in my chair.

The band played “Junkie,” they played “On Tuesdays” (a song about drinking on Tuesday), they played “Bricklayer,” they played a cover of the Beatles “I got a feeling,” and one song, the longest of the set consisted only of a single line “I’m made of nothin’ but heart.” On the wall of the bar is a large mural consisting of a topless mermaid and some kind of mythical island fortress. Suddenly I felt like Odysseus charting through a vast mystical sea, and this lady here on the wall, she was a siren, but her song was Gabriel’s majestic bellow. I told her that while she had impressive breath control I didn’t really find the sound to be sexually enticing. Further I asked her “What is all this? Who are all these people? What are they doing here?” I gestured at the crowd, some of them leaned up against walls, nodding in time, others jumping straight up and down waving their hands wildly above their head, and Gabriel shaking his head rapidly from side to side, a couple girls at the front of the stage scat-catting in fast motion with their hair in their eyes and their mouths grinning underneath. The mermaid smiled and winked at me and gestured toward the dance floor with her chin. “Well sure, I’d love to but I can’t move! The air is too heavy!” She shrugged and went back into the wall. I took this to mean “oh well, next time.” Next time indeed.

 

 Dick Laurent – September 28th, 2011