Lineup: Dance Gavin Dance/The Contortionist/Hail the Sun/Good Tiger/The White Noise
Venue: The Middle East Downstairs, Cambridge, MA
Date: October 7th, 2016
The White Noise: When you're attending a show with more than a few bands on the bill, you naturally don't have high expectations for the first band that takes the stage. In most cases, the occupants of this slot are uninspired, middling acts that seem to have been put on the tour just for the hell of it. The White Noise was not one of those bands. I can not recall the last time I saw a band playing to a scarce crowd of people who have no clue who they are come out and wreak as much havoc as they did. Within the first three songs of their set, their guitarist had essentially run a mini-marathon around the Middle East's stage and their singer had leaped off the stage to start a mosh pit then proceeded to do the rest of the song in the middle of the crowd. When you're an unknown band opening a show for an established veteran act like Dance Gavin Dance, this is the type of bold, attention-grabbing shit you need to do to make a lasting impression on an audience.
The White Noise set wasn't just a display of super-charged energy, the music also happened to be great. They are the rare post-hardcore band to combine catchy pop-inspired hooks with breakdowns that are legitimately heavy. With an intense live show and a deal with Fearless Records-who rosters the likes of August Burns Red, Pierce the Veil and blessthefall- don't be surprised if these guys blow up in the near future.
Good Tiger: Good Tiger is one of those bands that I haven't gotten around to checking out despite hearing nothing but great things about them from people whose opinions I really respect. Seeing them live was the final push I needed to get off my lazy ass and actually listen to their music. Elliott Coleman (ex-TesseracT and Sky Eats Airplane) is a terrific frontman with one of the most captivating, soulful voices in all of metal and the music was a really nice combination of post-hardcore, math rock and straight-up prog. Good Tiger is one of the more unique prog metal acts I've heard in a while and I'm excited to find out if their massive live sound carries over to their studio recordings.
Hail the Sun: I'm not going to lie, I had no idea how big Dance Gavin Dance Jr... I mean Hail the Sun was until this show. They got the type of wild crowd reaction that's usually reserved for headliners and big-name support acts. While it might just be case of recency bias, I've never been more surprised by a band receiving such an explosive crowd reaction in my eight years of going to concerts on a regular basis.
Despite the fact my enthusiasm was subdued compared to a majority of the crowd, I still found Hail the Sun to be pretty good. I don't love the vocals, but their guitarwork is the type of spastic technical wizardry that I can't get enough of and their primary vocalist-who is also their drummer-deserves a ton of credit for being able to bang out pretty intricate fills while simultaneously singing. Hail the Sun put on a pretty fun set that was more than enough to inspire me to revisit their new album Culture Scars ASAP.
The Contortionist: While The Contortionist did their studio material justice with a technically-proficient performance, their 40-minute set still managed to leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Every time I've seen The Contortionist over the past few years I just can't help but get sad about the direction they've taken post-Exoplanet. After Exoplanet came out in 2010, The Contortionist appeared destined to join Between the Buried and Me, Protest the Hero and Mastodon on the hill of modern prog metal behemoths. Now, they're a merely decent act that has sacrificed their unique progressive deathcore sound to become a glorified Cynic tribute band. The Contortionist has transformed into the vanilla ice cream of prog metal and that shit depresses the hell out of me.
Dance Gavin Dance: As someone whose love affair with metal/rock/hardcore/etc. music started in the mid 2000's, it's kind of astonishing that I'd never seen Dance Gavin Dance live before this show. They've put out a whopping seven albums in nine years as a national band, have become known for their relentless touring (this show marked the 5th time they've played in Massachusetts since May 2014) and are easily one of the most popular post-hardcore bands to be founded during my formative years yet they somehow managed to never appear on a tour I was interested in until now. Their performance on Friday night was enough to make me feel like a complete jabroni for waiting until 2016 to pull the trigger on seeing them live.
Dance Gavin Dance's stage show is noticeably different than any of the other post-hardcore bands I've seen. Their energy isn't noteworthy, they talk very little in between songs and their stage presence is pretty reserved. However, their sound mix/overall playing was near perfect and as far I'm as concerned, that's more important than explosive stage antics. Everything from the beautiful contrast between co-vocalists Tilian Pearson's angelic falsetto singing and Jon Mess' notoriously raspy screams to guitarist Will Swan's frantic sweep picks sounded exactly the same as it did on record. Given all of the advancements in recording technology that have made masking imperfections on studio albums incredibly easy, it's a stroke of good fortune every time you get to see a band like Dance Gavin Dance that has the talent and musicality to flawlessly play every note of their music in a live setting.
The construction of the setlist was kind of unexpected for a veteran band. Seven of the 12 songs they played were off of their last two albums (last year's Instant Gratification and the just-released Mothership) and they didn't play more than one song off of any their other records. I get that the band doesn't want to play a bunch of stuff from the Jonny Craig and Kurt Travis-eras, but it was still strange to see them gloss over a lot of their bigger songs ("Uneasy Hearts Weigh the Most", "And I Told Them I Invented Times New Roman", "It's Safe to Say You Dig the Backseat") in favor of the newer material.
As weird as it was to hear so little old stuff, it's not a decision that I have a problem with. Instant Gratification is my favorite record in Dance Gavin Dance's catalog and Mothership impressed the hell out of me on first listen, so having a set based around the material only boosted the quality of the set in my eyes. I wish they swapped out Instant Gratification lowlight "Death of a Strawberry" for someone like "Something New" or "The Cuddler", but aside from that, the song choices were pretty much perfect. "Stroke God, Millionaire" and "We Own the Night" were absolutely colossal while Mothership crown jewel "Flossy Dicky Bounce" ended up being the most purely fun song of the night.
It's been a stacked year for live performances, but Dance Gavin Dance is a lock to go down as one of the absolute best. I'm elated that I finally got to check off of my bucket list and I will not allow myself to skip another of their Boston-area shows without a valid reason ever again.
Scores:
The White Noise 8/10
Good Tiger 7.5/10
Hail the Sun 7.5/10
The Contortionist 6.5/10
Dance Gavin Dance 9/10
Setlists:
The White Noise (taken from setlist.fm):
Bloom
Red Eye Lids
Bite Marks
Brainwashed
Picture Day
Cosmopolitician
Good Tiger (taken from setlist.fm):
Snake Oil
I Pain What I See
All Her Own Teeth
Float On
Aspirations
Where Are the Birds
Hail the Sun (taken from setlist.fm):
Human Target Practice
Ow! (Spliado!) (I Like It, Though)
Burn Nice and Slow (The Formative Years)
Relax/Divide
Falling on Deaf Ears
Entertainment Lies
Will They Blame Me If You Go Disappearing?
The Contortionist:
Language I: Intuition
Language II: Conspire
Thrive
Solipsis
Primordial Sound
Casuality
Oscillator
The Parable
Dance Gavin Dance:
Chucky vs. the Giant Tortoise
Stroke God, Millionaire
On the Run
Spooks
Tree Village
Flossie Dickey Bounce
Death of a Strawberry
Strawberry Swisher Pt. 3
Betrayed by the Game
Lemon Meringue Tie
We Own the Night
Encore:
Alex English
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