My, how time flies.
It was seven years ago, almost to the day, that I attended my first Noise Pop show—an amazing evening at the Great American Music Hall featuring a little-known band called Jimmy Eat World. My college roommate and I drove to S.F. for the evening, got our car locked overnight in a parking garage in the Tenderloin that closed at midnight, and spent the night on the streets of the city’s sketchiest neighborhood avoiding catcalls from Polk Street’s notorious tranny hookers and trying not to get kicked out of bars for being underage. Good times.
Things have changed: Jimmy Eat World is now on MTV. I now live in San Francisco, so it makes it ok that I don’t have a car to park anymore. And I now know that the Tenderloin should be avoided at pretty much all costs—but at least I’m old enough to hide out in bars when I’m there.
Noise Pop itself has grown significantly over the years into quite the little indie rock empire, and I couldn’t be happier. All these years later and I was back at Great American Music Hall watching my favorite not-quite-emo band Cursive and marveling at how the fine folks at NP manage to put together opening band line-ups that I’ve never heard of but absolutely can’t get enough of.
The Blacks started to a near-empty house of hardcore fans that showed up extra early to get spots right against the stage and along the balcony on the upper floor (my personal favorite vantage point). The female fronting the three-piece was the lovely Luisa Black, a dark-haired Karen O. look-a-like clad in electric blue leggings and playing the guitar. And the comparison to Yeah Yeah Yeahs didn’t end with Luisa’s look—her voice on many of the tracks from their album Nom de Guerre had that same raw energy that people love about the YYYs. But the band’s main energy source onstage was a white suit-wearing JDK Blacker. The co-frontman is the first person I’ve ever seen play the tambourine with his whole body—I mean sweating, jumping, pounding, convulsing tambourine playing.
The only thing I have to say about Judgement Day is… wow. Just, wow. The trio from Oakland plays a brand of metal/classical music that I’ve never heard and never thought I’d enjoy, and they do it with an enthusiasm and abandon that you don’t often get from instrumental bands. Anton and Lewis Patzner play violin and cello respectively, and Jon Bush joins them on some serious kick-ass, double-bass-speed drums. The result is classical string performance plugged in, amped up and put together in metal arrangements. Amazing. During tracks from both Dark Opus and their new acoustic album, the crowd went crazy as the dueling strings battled it out like you’d see from top-notch guitar players. Nobody missed the vocals, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s checking their website now to see where I can catch them next.
The venue was finally full as Darker My Love came on, and unfortunately the sound system kept them from playing their best set. Singers Tim Presley and Rob Barbato could hardly be heard over their own playing and the cymbal crashes from Andy Granelli were almost deafening. As the band paused between the first couple of songs, fans yelled for more vocals, which improved the situation a bit, but still left the lyrics unfortunately muffled by the band’s amazing sound. Good thing the organ parts by Will Canzoneri kept things interesting.
As Cursive took the stage, it was obvious that many in attendance were there for these guys. The indie/emo rockers from Nebraska (man, who knew Omaha rocked so hard?) played tracks from across their discography, including pieces from the popular 2003 album The Ugly Organ, 2001’s Burst and Bloom EP and the recent Happy Hollow, among others. I was impressed with the ballad-like softness of “Bad Sects” juxtaposed with the thrashing, vibrating intensity of “Dorothy Dreams of Tornadoes.” Arms pumped and bodies on the floor moved like one giant mass during the faster pieces. The only disappointment, and this is my fault for obviously not paying close enough attention in the last couple of years, was the absence of the band’s famed cello player Gretta Cohn, who quit the band in 2005 and whose parts on certain tracks were played on baritone sax.
I only hope that in seven more years I’m back at GAMH listening to more great music and not chauffeuring kids to soccer practice in my minivan. One can only hope.
More on Cursive here: www.myspace.com/cursive
More on Darker My Love here: www.myspace.com/darkermylove
More on Judgement Day here: www.myspace.com/stringmetal
More on The Blacks here: www.myspace.com/theblacksarehere
