Caught another live show of one of my favorite bands last week at the Recher Theatre in Towson, MD. The act was Rx Bandits and Dredg with Zechs Marquise opening and it was a great show.
The Recher is a great venue for these smaller shows. They’ve got bars on two of the walls of their rectangle, there’s more than enough room for a decent-sized show, and the size of the place gives you a nice intimate feeling with the bands that are playing. Like most shows, nothing really goes on for the openers. There might be a few diehard fans come to see the band play, but in general the crowd is mostly dispersed and moderately interested. The beauty of that night’s opener was that Zechs Marquise was playing a solid set and they actually got some of the more skeptical and jaded members of the audience, such as myself, interested in what they were doing up on stage. A mostly experimental group, their sound is complex with two guitars and a drummer, but no lyrics. The genre makes sense, considering that it seems to be a Mars Volta side project. I made a note in my iPod to check them out when I got home and consider a purchase, but then I saw that they were selling their album, Our Delicate Stranded Nightmare, for $10, so I thought “What the heck?” and I put down a Hamilton. What a mistake. I really should have taken some time to listen to them online first, because, and I’ve only made it through about eight tracks, but none of the complex rock guitars with drums I was hearing on stage seems to be on the disc. Instead I’ve got what initially seems like an hour of vaguely creepy-sounding ambient music, which would be fantastic if I had a haunted house, but seems pretty useless to me now. I’ll continue to give the disc a listen, but it hasn’t made a strong impression so far.
Their set was fantastic, I can’t deny that, so perhaps they’re a band best heard live instead of on CD, a real rarity in this world. At one point Steve Choi, keyboard player for the Bandits, came out and started rocking out with them. It was pretty cool. If they’re opening for a band you like, I’d recommend showing up early enough to catch their set.
Given how much I’ve gushed about the Bandits on the site before, I’m sure most of you can predict what I thought of their set. Like I’ve said before, their recording process is unique in that they give themselves only a few attempts and only overdub the vocals, horns, and some percussion in post-production. Since they haven’t got any horns anymore, it results in a set that sounds very organic and close to the CD, which has the unintended consequence of making it feel like I’m listening to a CD at times.
Rx opened with a Central American-inspired drum circle containing members of the band. This Latin influence was felt within their latest album, Mandala, and it definitely made its presence shown right at the start of the set. Given that Mandala launched the week prior to the show, it made sense for the band to play a few songs from the new album along with the older classics. Matt Embree and Steve Choi rocked out on guitars and I got to see a funny, lighthearted side of Embree when the cymbals on Christopher Tsagakis’ drum set seemed to be malfunctioning. As he tried to repair his kit by salvaging the cymbals off of another drum set, Matt started to play cymbals with the end of his guitar to try and keep the song sounding how it should. Another great moment was right near the finale. As he tried to calm down the room before the huge finale, he asked the house to turn down the lights. When they all didn’t go out at once, he started singing “And this one too, how about we turn this one off as well.” It was pretty funny and we all calmed down for the Bandits to blow us away with their closing number, “Only For The Night”, my favorite Bandits song. I can’t forget to mention how fantastic Joe Troy was on bass. He was seriously rocking out during the set.
No surprises here, the Bandits rocked my socks and went off the stage leaving me stunned at how good their set was. I tried to listen to Dredg a little, but they took so long getting out that my patience had worn thin (it was a Tuesday), so I went home during their first song.
Great night, great show, see Rx Bandits if they’re ever in a town near you.
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