Portastatic / Double Dynamite Merge Fest Day 3 The Cat’s Cradle – Chapel Hill, NC July 30, 2004 Review by Jake Thomas On the second night of Merge Fest, my friends and I had noticed Ira and Georgia from Yo La Tengo hanging around; then a friend of mine who is in a band on the label said they were going to be having something to do with the opening act on the third night, under the moniker Double Dynamite. We had no idea what to expect, and it certainly wasn’t what we got…a mostly-cover band featuring Ira on guitar and supposedly one of the guys from Upright Citizen’s Brigade on vocals. There were a lot of costume changes, insuring that the entire audience saw the singer’s cock-and-ball set at some point during the performance. Songs ranged from ELO’s “Telephone Lines” to Queen/Bowie’s “Under Pressure” to The Chi-Lite’s “Ooh Child”, and a number of songs I either didn’t know or that were originals. The whole event was sloppy at best, but highly entertaining – between the outrageous costumes and a lot of falling around in an unintentional manner by the singer, my sides hurt by the end from laughing so much. Next up was Portastatic; that equals Superchunk Mac for two days in a row, not something I’m against. I can’t claim that I was paying a ton of attention, as the Galaga machine kept beckoning my quarters, but I did notice a few things: most notably a guest appearance by David Kilgour of the Clean to perform a song with the group. It also occurred to me - where Portastatic started out as an outlet for Mac to play the pop songs he was writing that didn’t really fit in with the sound of the Chunk, over the years Superchunk has pretty much turned into a pop band. The only thing really separating the sound of the two groups is that you are much more likely to hear keyboards in Portastatic; but with Mac’s unique voice being one of the hallmarks you will remember upon hearing either groups, I could imagine those out there who aren’t terribly familiar might get a little confused. Finishing off the night in a big way were local heroes Crooked Fingers; and even though Eric Bachman may not live there anymore, the love for his former band the Archers of Loaf is so great in those parts that he could probably record an entire record of squeaking brakes and fart sounds and everyone in Chapel Hill would own it (and me too, to be quite honest). I think every time I’ve seen Crooked Fingers over the last few years, the line-up has been different; this time around was no exception, as there is now a female vocalist/keyboard player in the band (and no, she’s not one of the girls from Azure Ray like on the last tour; someone totally different). She added a great dynamic to the vocals, it was like the whole show was one big Lee Hazelwood / Nancy Sinatra duet-fest at times. The group played lots of new tracks, some of which I remember from the last time I saw them here in SF, as well as plenty of classics like “New Drink for the Old Drunk”, “Black Black Ocean” and “Crowned in Chrome” if I remember correctly. They even had one of the dudes who plays horns with Destroyer on stage a couple of times, most notably helping out on “Sweet Marie” from their most recent release “Red Devil Dawn”. But the highlight - not just of their set, not just of the night, and not just of the trip to Chapel Hill, but of my recent time on this earth – was when they decided to play the Archers anthem “Web in Front” as their final song. I thought the entire place was going to go into a full scale riot…the sound of every single person in a venue screaming the lyrics of your song along with you, bouncing off of one another with huge smiles on their face…it’s an amazing feeling just to be a part of it; I can’t even fathom what it might be like if it was a reaction to something I had written or performed. Without a doubt, and not to get too hippy about things, but it’s moments like these that makes you glad to be alive. |