By: Bob Longmore
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The Beatifics opened up the Current Listener Appreciation Party in the First Avenue Mainroom - Photo by David de Young
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The dance floor at First Avenue was virtually empty as the screen went up and The Beatifics launched into their first song, “Those Kids.” The Beatifics play a kind of perfect pop with an obvious Beatles and Stones influence to their songs - hardly a bad thing. If it were a crime to cop a Beatles arrangement here and there, there would hardly be any records legalized in the last 40 years of pop music.
Slowly, the audience filled in, and a few made it to the dance floor with their heads bobbing and hips swaying. The Beatifics make a person bounce impulsively. The band was tight-lipped between songs; as one song faded they would start in on the next. Front man Chris Dorn eventually gave the first of many acknowledgements to the show’s sponsor, when he said, “Thanks to The Current for putting us on and for existing.”
Robert Skoro
A newly-grown beard concealed Robert Skoro’s baby face as he engaged the crowd with just his acoustic guitar and voice. The last time I saw Skoro solo was two years ago at Big V’s. I’ve always enjoyed his set when accompanied by a band, but until this performance I did not know how well he could pull off the role of a solo singer-songwriter. Opening with “Two-Part Harmony” from his debut album Proof, he showed a confidence that I hadn‘t noticed before. Skoro’s quiet set showed off the newly rewired and mostly buzz-free First Avenue sound system, another of many improvements made recently by the club (although I personally miss the gutter bar).
Unfortunately, the people who filled the dance floor during The Beatifics set seemed disinterested, except for the few right up front. Skoro thanked The Current and plugged his full-band show later that night at The Triple Rock before playing his fourth and final song, an intense version of “2318.”
Valet
As Mary Lucia was introducing Valet, someone in the crowd yelled “I love you,” and the sentiment was echoed by other concert-goers. Lucia quickly retorted, “I love you, too.” Valet started their set - minus keyboardist Paul Fugelstad - with “Habana,” a song from their latest record, Life on The Installment Plan. By this point, the crowd had nearly tripled in size, though it was still by no means a packed house. In this all too rare appearance, Valet - the Howard Hughes of the local indie-rock scene - was clicking, despite being a person short. Singer Robin Kyle even commented towards the end of their set, “We’re actually kind of rocking tonight.”
As the band played “George Best vs. Michael Stone” with its chorus of, “We’ll take our medicine/ cocktail by cocktail,” I looked around at the audience, the majority of whom had their arms bent at 90-degree angles, cradling their drinks. Two women made their way to the front of the dance floor, the first full-fledged dancers of the evening. They continued dancing through Valet’s final song, and even through the set break.
White Light Riot
The audience at this show definitely tended toward a certain age group. The average age, I would guess, was late twenties or early-thirties. However, as it came time for White Light Riot to begin, a group of younger people appeared and made their way to the front.
Chris Roberts, host of The Local Show on 89.3, introduced White Light Riot and gave thanks to the station’s listeners when he said, “I think it is fantastic we discovered each other through the airwaves.”
And then, like a ton of bricks, White Light Riot descended upon the audience. From the first furious note, they took the control of the room and made their presence known: WLR demanded attention. Drummer Mark Schwandt looked like a madman behind his kit, and armed with a maniacal grin he seemed to teeter on the edge of control. The rest of the band followed suit, proving that teetering on the edge of control sounds fucking great. The four members of the band broke into a sweat halfway into their first song.
It would be safe to say that WLR wowed people during their set. I could see a glow on the faces of the audience members, many exhibiting a half-smirking look that says, “Holy shit, I can’t believe what I am seeing.”
P.O.S.
After a short delay, P.O.S. appeared on the stage and asked the crowd, “Is everybody happy?” The crowd responded loudly in the affirmative. “Me and my iPod are gonna kill it!” P.O.S. said as he tore into his first song. His set consisted mostly of songs from Audition, his new album. P.O.S. asked the audience to come closer to the stage where he knelt between the monitors, opened up his palm, and had the energized faithful eating out of it for the remainder of the show.
During his set, P.O.S. spent most of the time near the edge of the stage, engaging the group of souls directly in front of him, who weren’t afraid to scream and put their hands up. At one point a guy with a crooked cap named Mike told P.O.S. that he could beatbox. Fifteen seconds later, Mike was on stage and laying down the beat as P.O.S. stole a chorus from a Bouncing Souls song, “No one will ever be like me.”
After chasing Mike from the stage, P.O.S. - in another nod to the show’s sponsor - said, “This is the song they play on The Current, which is a station I actually listen to.” The rapper then broke into “P.O.S is Ruining My Life,” with its refrain of, “If you come down and just breathe/ and just breathe in and out/ you’ll feel a whole lot better.” Employing that low guttural growl, P.O.S. showed that he knows how to wring emotion out of every syllable.
Towards the end of the set someone shouted out a request for “Duct Tape.” While P.O.S. looked through the songs on his iPod, he said, “Dude, I swear when I find it, I will rap the hell out of that shit!” And that he did.
Location Info:
First Avenue
Artist Info: P.O.S., Robert Skoro, The Beatifics, Valet, White Light Riot
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