Wow. What a great combo night. No Age and Liars back to back. Much better than sitting at home and watching that Home Improvement marathon that you’ve been wasting your time on. Tivo that shit and go to more shows like this.
Los Angeles minimalist punk revivalists No Age rocked the chandeliers at the El Rey with a scorching set of melody, rhythm, and experimental noise. Guitarist Randy Randall plays chunky repetitive riffs and excellent rhythm guitar on his battered up Gibson SG, which is absolutely fucking perfect for the sound they’re going for. He loops guitar on his Boss RC-20XL and uses plenty of delay on top of that to have a much larger sound than most people can pull off with only two band members. Drummer/Singer Dean Spunt takes charge with a minimalistic stage presence, but thanks the audience and Liars, and tells us it’s good to be back home on the final show of their shared tour with Liars.
The amazing thing about these guys is their charm. They play music that revives a crowd of people that’s identical to what you’d see in old punk documentaries, and they look happy the entire time. They realize they’re hitting it big and are doing what they love and what the fans love, playing great fucking rock ‘n roll music and being true about it. The crowd was extremely into the show and if you shot black and white photos of them, it wouldn’t be so far off from what you’d see in the book and film American Hardcore. This has to be one of the best and most involved crowds you’ll see at a rock show today. Black Lips stirs up a similar crowd behavior.
They played songs such as "Everybody's Down”, “My Life’s Alright Without You” and “Boy Void” from their debut album Weirdo Rippers, followed by a few new tracks off their upcoming LP Nouns, which is set for a May 6th release under Sub-Pop Records. By the sound of it, I expect this album to be a little brighter and have more focus on rhythmic guitar intros…that Randy Randall dude is really getting even better at guitar since I saw them open for Pop Levi back at the Echoplex in June ’07.
I have to say that they closed out their performance in what proved to be the absolute coolest fucking thing I have ever seen a band do to conclude their set. Randy Randall was pounding chords on his guitar, then he looped them together and handed out his guitar into the audience. Everyone put their hands up as if supporting a crowd surfer, and then suddenly the guitar got sucked into the audience like a ship in a sea storm being swallowed by a giant squid amongst the crashing waves. Shit was fucking epic. People were pulling off strings, beating it up, and they ended up completely snapping the neck off the body. Finally, the guitar was handed back to Randy, and he started shaking peoples’ hands and high-fiving everyone,all with a huge smile on his face.
Here is a playlist of a few good No Age songs including the track Eraser off the upcoming "Nouns" LP. Also included is the Bjork cover "It's Oh So Quiet", followed by her original version:
They played songs from all albums, including “Leather Prowler”, “Houseclouds”, “Plaster Casts of Everything”, “Clear Island”, "Freak Out", “Drum and the Uncomfortable Can”, “Pure Unevil”, “Let’s Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack”, and “The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack” (not in that particular order). And just because he had his back injury didn't mean he didn't move around. The entire time he danced awkwardly around stage, almost like I've seen Mick Jagger in videos. I watched nervously as if he was going to topple around on stage, but he stayed erect the entire time. Hey, you! Get your mind out of the gutter!
Please stay tuned for videos from the show...they should be up by the end of this weekend!
The Liars playlist below includes a Crystal Castles remix of "It Fit When I Was a Kid"
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