Concert Review: Dance Gavin Dance-- Worcester, MA--April 14th, 2019

Lineup: Dance Gavin Dance/Periphery/Don Broco/Hail the Sun/Covet
Venue: The Palladium, Worcester, MA

Covet: Only saw the final portion of their last song. They sounded like a pretty solid, mellow instrumental band.

Hail the Sun: On paper, Hail the Sun is a band that I should really enjoy. They play a high energy brand of post-hardcore with plenty of indulgent guitar theatrics and spastic drumming. The reason this intriguing description becomes far less exciting in execution is vocalist Donovan Melero. Don't get it twisted: Melero is a capable vocalist who performs the material pretty much perfectly live, it's just that his Anthony Green-esque voice doesn't click with me. Ultimately, Hail the Sun is energetic and musically precise enough to endure for a 30-minute opening slot, but I'd be completely fine with never seeing them again.    

Don Broco: Around 8:00, the lights went down and piercing screams from female audience members soon filled the room. Once the stage became illuminated again, I was treated to a sight that simultaneously deeply confused me and explained why a wave of sexualized energy had suddenly entered The Palladium.

A massive, goofy bass groove that sounded like Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" had been put through a new wave filter kicked in and this curly-haired white dude breaks into this gyration-heavy strut that was essentially a horndog version of the dance JuJu Smith-Schuster does in the above Pizza Hut commercial. Moments later, a man that looked like Angus Young entering a Planet Fitness to hop on the treadmill for 15 minutes to get in a quick blast of cardio after a sweet riff writing session ran by this air-fucking spectacle and the gyrating man starts crooning like he's in a Duran Duran cover band. Throw in the occasional pseudo-djent breakdown to add some grit to their otherwise sunny sound and you have a rough idea of the unique type of madness that Don Broco served up.

Was Don Broco's music and stage antics incredibly odd? Very much so. Were they out of place on this bill? Probably. Was every minute of their set captivating as hell? You bet your ass it was. If every show featured a bizarre British pop rock band, the world would likely be a much happier place.  

Periphery: The Palladium is notorious for having sketchy acoustics that are difficult for the sound personnel to navigate. Periphery became the latest act to fall victim to the merciless Audio Gods of Worcester. Like Veil of Maya vocalist Lukas Magyar at last year's Summer Slaughter, the volume of Spencer Sotelo's vocals consistently fluctuated throughout the set.

As opposed to Magyar who faced a consistent problem with the audibility of his lower pitched vocals, there were stretches where Sotelo had no issues at all. While their 45-minute set was bookended with largely muddled mixes that buried both his harsh and clean vocals behind the booming albeit spot-on instrumentation, he sounded terrific during the mid-section ("Garden in the Bones", "The Way News Goes...", "Marigold") where his vocals shined through. It was definitely a little bit disappointing to see their set get bogged down by sound problems,especially with this being my first time seeing them since August 2013, but there was still enough positives along the way to chalk this up as a W for Maryland's finest musical export since Father John Misty.          

Dance Gavin Dance: Periphery should've borrowed Dance Gavin Dance's sound guy. From top to bottom, this was one of the crisper mixes I've ever heard at this venue. Without the burden of being held back by audio problems that are out of their control, the post-hardcore vets proceeded to absolutely rip shit up.

When a band delivers a performance of this magnitude, you start to dissect how this came to be. The conclusion that I reached after marinating on it for a bit is simple: When a group is completely engaged and in sync with one another, you're going to get a special show. Their universal technical wizardry and the brilliant vocal dynamic between the angelic falsetto singing of Tillan Pearson and rough screams of Jon Mess provides a strong backbone, but their off-the-charts chemistry and visible enjoyment for what they do is what pushes them from a great to an elite live act. For a band that lacked stability in its early years, the continuity they've enjoyed of late (this current iteration has been together since 2012) is a blessing that has allowed them to thrive more than they had at any other point of their career.  

Honestly, the only problem with Dance Gavin Dance's set was that it was barley an hour long. I would've loved to see them play at least 4-5 more songs and work in some more old material, but that's just an obligatory petty complaint for a performance that was damn near perfect. Starting off my 2019 concertgoing with a performance of this caliber was truly special and I'd be surprised if it doesn't end up placing very high on my year-end top 10 list.

Grades:
Hail the Sun: B-
Don Broco: B+
Periphery: B+
Dance Gavin Dance: A+

Setlists:
Don Broco:
Everybody
Stay Ignorant
You Wanna Know
Technology
Come Out to LA
T-Shirt Song
Pretty

Periphery:
The Bad Thing
Remain Indoors
Garden in the Bones
The Way News Goes...
Marigold
Blood Eagle
Masamune

Dance Gavin Dance:
Son of Robot
Suspended in This Disaster
Summertime Gladness
The Rattler
Count Bassy
Chucky vs. the Giant Tortoise
Flossie Dickey Bounce
Uneasy Hearts Weigh the Most
Head Hunter
We Own the Night
Man of the Year

Encore:
Evaporate