The Gong Show

I went to see A Place to Bury Strangers at the Mercury Lounge on Sept 20th. The openers were Die Romantik and The Most Serene Republic. The show was great across the board; every band was excellent in their own way.

The Most Serene Republic was up first. The lead singer reminded me a lot of Rob Kalin, the CEO of Etsy, which I found pretty entertaining. Some songs reminded me of Stars because they were romantic indie rock with their girl/boy duets. Other songs reminded me more of Broken Social Scene because of their triumphant climaxes that included a trombone peaking above a crashing wave of multiple distorted guitars. While checking The Most Serene Republic out online right now, I’m not surprised they reminded me of Broken Social Scene and Stars because all three bands are on the same label: Arts & Crafts. However, unlike most bands on Arts & Crafts, The Most Serene Republic doesn’t share any members with Broken Social Scene. I’m sure that fact will change soon as the Broken Social Scene line-up rotates on future tours.

Next up was Die Romantik. The drummer in this band was excellent. He had a ton of passion, but still kept things super tight. He even added vocals to one song. The rest of the group was great too, but they were all kinda introvented, which is surprising for bands in general… there’s usually one extrovent (typically the lead). Their music was kinda like a faster-paced Low… like Low’s “The Great Destroyer”, except more-spirited vocals. The lighting they used was pretty cool. They ran wires 10 ft up in the air across the stage and hung 3 sets of old school light bulbs (like the kind Edison would have created by hand) that were dimly lit so you could see the coils. It added a lot to the atmosphere.

Finally, A Place to Bury Strangers took the stage. Die Romantik ran long, so A Place to Bury Strangers played a pretty short set: just over a half hour. But, it was a half hour of pulverizing awesomeness. Their music is like if Ian Curtis of Joy Division had lived long enough to see some of the Boston hardcore metal scene, like ISIS, and then the result was ran through 8 different petal effects units. The atmosphere was even better: The primary source of light was a movie reel soaking the band members in color. They had a guy in the back operating two 8mm projectors playing looped cuts of grainy, chaotic imagery, and then the operator used a few pieces of cardboard to mix together the results by covering the projectors temporarily. The only other source of light in the room was a strobe that pumped out bursts of light tied to the bass drum kicks. The word “intense” is such an understatement.

If you ever get a chance to see any of these bands live, jump on it. What a great night.

Listen to The Most Serene Republic.
Listen to Die Romantik.
Listen to A Place to Bury Strangers.

Here’s a music video for A Place to Bury Strangers that captures the concert experience pretty well:

[Photo credit (pretty sure this photo is from the same A Place to Bury Strangers show I went to): Mercurialn]