Road, show

Yesterday some friends and I drove to Richmond to see some bands play at a local bar. I hadn’t heard of any of the bands before – this was all on recommendation from my friend Dean, the guy who drove us there. But I’ve never really been to Richmond, and road trips and music are fun, so I was pretty excited about it all. The road trip to Richmond was more or less uneventful, except for the part where an eighteen-wheeler trying to pass on the left almost smashed right into us, and Dean swerved into the shoulder just in time.

The show was in a bar called the Camel. As we walked up to the door I noticed a small group of some species of hipster sitting outside, petting large dogs and looking generally disheveled. I’m not sure what they were doing there, but they looked like some kind of sideshow. When we went inside the bouncer drew large black X’s on my hands to distinguish me as underage, and therefore not eligible for alcohol. It was pretty clear you could just wash them off in the bathroom, but I didn’t bother.

The first guys to play called themselves the Amateur Thieves. They were enthusiastic, but somewhat off-key, and sounded a little bit like a wilder version of the Jonas Brothers. Thieves less obnoxious than Jonases, it goes without saying (and granted I haven’t really heard much of either group), but they still had that bright, almost happy-sounding attempt at being intense. The middle-schoolers attempting a mosh pit up by the stage probably didn’t help that impression. The lead singer thanked his mom and dad for coming to their show, which also probably didn’t help.

Next were these guys called the Max Levine Ensemble. They’re from D.C., which is very close to my hometown, so I liked them already. They had a cool sound, and they were pretty passionate about their songs. Lots of people like to explain what their songs are about before playing them, but the singer went pretty much all out to this end. Toward the end of the set he introduced a song about sexism, or something to that effect, and gave us quite a long, progressively more impassioned, tirade about how “patriarchy…it’s like, a real thing, out there.” Then they played the song, hard.

Third was Mischief Brew, who I thought were pretty great. These guys had a lot of fans, and I felt a little out of place not screaming along like almost everyone else in attendance. High Celtic influence punk-type stuff, but actually I think that’s pretty common. They probably listen to a lot of Dropkick Murphys or something. The room was really busy by this time, and it was almost impossible not to get sucked into the swirling mass of human bodies shouting and flailing in the center. It was way more exciting than either of the preceding bands. Their frontman had a pretty great stage presence and even never having heard them before, watching them was a load of fun.

Then came World/Inferno Friendship Society. According to Dean, these guys are “really fucking awesome” and were the whole reason we drove out to Richmond in the first place. When these guys came on, I was suddenly aware of just how wise it had been to buy tickets online, ahead of time. The room was packed with fans. And these are serious fans we’re talking about – they knew every song word for word and intuited which ones would be played next. I figured out eventually that a lot of these people had actually come to Richmond from Pennsylvania, just following the band. A lot of people, Dean among them, turned up dressed in Oxford shirts, slacks, and ties, which I’m told is a kind of fan tradition after the dressed-up style of WIFS’s lead singer, this balding but very witty guy called Jack. The hipster sideshow I had seen sitting outside (and still sitting outside, apparently, at this point) did not compare to the traveling circus appearance of World/Inferno Friendship Society.

By the way, I think it’s some kind of rule that bands include a tall, thin guy, a kind of stocky (possibly bearded) guy, and a rather strange drummer. This was at least the rule for everyone playing at the Camel yesterday.

The music was catchy and lyrically fun and damn entertaining. All of WIFS’s people are charismatic on stage, although the attention is pretty much all Jack’s. The audience was pretty much the largest group of completely ecstatic people I’ve ever seen in one place. It was rousing good fun. Some guy grabbed my arm and swung me into the throbbing crowd to dance; not dancing apparently not allowed. The music was fun and lyrically clever, although really I’m probably going to like any group with an electric violinist, and upbeat: not frantically, but it had a sense of being barely controlled. The music is not really what I would listen to just to listen to music, or use in a soundtrack, or anything like that: I get the sense these guys are much better live than on a recording, although their music is cool either way.

They closed their set, left the stage, and came back for a two-song encore. The first they played for a newlywed couple at the show, who apparently got engaged at a previous World/Inferno show. The second was “Only Anarchists Are Pretty,” which is, I’m told, a World/Inferno classic. A pretty fair assumption, judging by the level of audience participation.

I finally managed to locate Dean as the crowd slowly vacated the bar. “We’re gonna hang around a bit,” he said. “I have to make sure I’m not still bleeding.” Someone kicked him in the head while crowd-surfing, or something like that. I’m not exactly sure.

The way home was uneventful, too, except for the part where we sailed down a dark, curving backroad, the only car in sight, the sounds of night woods and wind resistance coming in through the open windows (probably an apt diversion for any driver named Dean). It made me nostalgic for the times I used to have a car. We got back to Williamsburg late and tired and with early classes awaiting, but it was probably the most fun Wednesday night I’ve had in a long time. Give World/Inferno Friendship Society a listen, and Mischief Brew as well, and take a long, late drive to a different city one of these days.