By Oscar Medina
Photos by Christopher Musgrave
NYC experimental rockers The Liars sold out show at Slim’s on Friday night proved why their brand of abrasive atonal rock can still command an audience on a rainy night in San Francisco. The Liars are a band that has received equal parts wrath and acclaim for their willfully insular approach to rock (see Rolling Stones famous scathing review that gave one of their records 1 star). But the times have changed, and now The Liars are riding the heels of two critically acclaimed records– Drum’s Not Dead, an experimental masterpiece recorded in Berlin, and a self titled record that brought them back to the roots, eschewing high art concepts for grinding truck rock with smatterings of shoegaze drone.
Walking up to Slim’s on a cold rainy night and seeing a line that extended to the corner for a niche avant garde rock band was just one of the many surprises that occurred on Friday night. Hipsters abounded in droves, skinny pants, American Apparel hoodies, girls in cowboy boots, leather jackets and all the rest of street couture came out in full force to see what the Liars had in store.
The openers No Age; a two-piece from the Smell Scene in LA whose Weirdo Rippers record last year combined DIY punk aesthetics with the melodic sensibilities of 90’s indie rock came onto the stage and puzzled many. A two piece (bass/guitar) has the dangers of being a complete snoozefest and many in the audience reacted as such at first, but that slowly changed over the rest of their set. After a few missteps No Age pulled it off by the sheer psychotic energy displayed in their performance. The drummer/vocalist flailed his arms, swung around in his seat and played his ass off, switching from a 4/4 traditional punk beat to stutter step jazz as if there was no skill involved.The guitarist would add effects through his pedals eliciting white noise that would abruptly halt and then launch into grinding riffs that made the crowd of no-fun hipsters forget their self consciousness for a few moments. They ended their set with one of the more melodic pieces off their last record that combined intricate guitar picking, a punk riff from the Dischord catalog, and a tribal drum beat which closed off their set on a high note.
When the Liars got onto the stage and played the fist notes it was obvious these guys are in full command of their powers. Ridiculously tall lead singer Angus came on with a limp holding his back, and was forced had to remain seated for much of the night due to a recent back injury, but this did not detract in anyway from the performance. They played liberally from their discography, switching from high art- industrial machine rock, to shoegazy pop, to tribal drones that threatened to break amps with ease.
Angus cuts an odd figure on stage, a gangly tall Aussie who brushes away his mussy hair every few minutes, sits next to the drummer and gives off the vibe that he doesn’t want to be there but will switch over to being an intensely aware performer with an almost catatonic focus on his performance. He would walk around as if he’s never seen a stage before and as if no one else was in the room. He would investigate his surroundings with a childlike wide eyed naievete and then suddenly groan to himself with the world weariness of an old man. In certain parts of the songs, more notably the tracks off Drum’s Not Dead, he would mimic the sound the guitars would make by making fluttering bird gestures with his hands as if he was controlling the guitars himself. For an all ages show, and many in the audience were under 21, Angus came off as a lunatic/genius whose wild eyed antics did not obscure the fact that he is an undeniably captivating performer.
The rest of the band was more subdued, but still played in a workman like fashion, with a drummer that might as well have been a machine and not a human, pounding out tribal, precise drum beats that would make John Bonham proud. The guitarist was equally talented in his delivery going from slashing noise riffs, adding pedal effects quickly and then would deftly move to the more melodic side of things adding nuance and depth to a band whose intensity can blindly pass over the more complex side of things.The bass player would move from his bass to playing keyboard and then on certain tracks would accompany the drummer with two toms and a cowbell.
The sheer ferocity of the performance cannot be underestimated and this was quickly confirmed to me as I saw what I thought was, yes, moshing. Moshing at a noise/avant/ rock show? What? Well, when you have pounding drum rhythms that sounds like you’re inside a dank Berlin warehouse, and cutting guitar riffs that rattle the inside of your skull, and a lead singer on stage that acts and performs like schizophrenic that’s been possessed by a demon, the kids can tend to act a little crazy. For the encore they played two songs, “Clear Island” being the obvious winner, a dissonant anthem that elicited yelling and screaming from the crowd, and with that Angus bowed out by limply walking away from the stage, but not before he grabbed a drum stick and wildly fired it into the crowd. As the crowd shuffled out it was obvious that bucking up and going out on a rainy night was the right call.
SF Weekly
January 30th, 2008
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