Live: Black Keys w/ Jay Reatard
Commodore Ballroom
April 5, 2008
The Black Keys were good, I guess. I really wasn’t familiar with them before this show. I was under the assumption they were a little more thrashy, a little more punk rock. Turns out they’re both extremely talented purveyors of massive blues hooks and southern-style stoner-ish jam-downs. The drummer’s name was Patrick – I know this because the lead singer introduced him to us three times, the last of which Patrick seemed genuinely annoyed by. He fucking wailed though. The steak-necked jocks and the aging whore in the “Anal Queen” t-shirt seemed stoked. Personally, I enjoyed the theatrical light show and all the internal self-wrangling I imposed on myself trying to figure out why I’m still surprised by the people I see out at shows in Vancouver.
(“Hey, Buchholz, all the ‘cool’ people you know are too poor to go to see bands. If it wasn’t for these “jocks” and “whores” paying the bills, no one would bother making music anymore, all right? Enjoy another night on the guest list…”)
Sounds a bit simplistic up there, doesn’t it? I guess that’s because it sort of was. It was two dudes playing an (arguably) slightly updated amalgamation of some of the most quintessential ‘rock stylings’ of the past several decades in a way that was meant to - and desired to - be consumed by lots of people who don’t want to think too much. Which is great.
I don’t think one can say the same about opening act Jay Reatard.
No, that’s wrong. Most people would definitely apply the “people who don’t want to think too much” category to fans of Jay Reatard. I thought that that was the reason I was into him when I first discovered him. Incorrect.
The real reason I realized watching his 15 song, 27 minute set on Sunday night. The whole thing might be a bit theoretical, but I believe that Reatard is currently on a one-man mission to destroy the music industry and everything it stands for. And not in some grand-gesture, faux-anarchist, Radiohead/NIN/Madonna sort of way, but through the act of executing every aspect of every show as directly antithesis to what may be expected of him as a potential Next Big Thing.
It was like this:
As I said: 15 songs (give or take), in 27 minutes (for real). The only time Reatard speaks into the mic when not singing is to bark out the title of the next song, usually followed by “Let’s Go.” Songs that, on album, are fleshed out by things like acoustic guitar or subtle melody are here recast as double-time blasts of fuzz and spit. One gets the feeling he’s trying to get away from his own material; “All Over Again” – 1:58 running time on album and full of twinkling, undistorted picking – here barely makes it to a minute, contains two powerchords, and has both the first verse and extended outro cut right the fuck off. He and bassist Uncle Daddy spit at each other, the wig-wearing drummer, and the crowd, all with the same sense of benign disengagement. As the show ends, Reatard and Uncle Daddy do the traditional thrash-and-feedback, guitar-facing-the-amp thing as they leave stage, only for Uncle Daddy to walk back out ten seconds later and turn off both amps. Silence.
I think there were 10 or 12 people there who might have understood what was going on. And as I stood there watching the ‘show,’ wishing it was in a tiny, stinking dive with beer dripping off the roof and fifty people getting cathartic, I had to wonder what the dude standing near the front thought he had just seen as he wiped spit out of the gel holding up his ski-jump. Maybe he thought it was “gay”. Or maybe he, like me, was looking through some twisted window into the future.
But I doubt it.
By Chad R. Buchholz
