By: Andrea Myers
After opening band Epic Hero left the stage, people flooded the main pit of Station 4 and pressed themselves persistently toward the front of the room. As the minutes ticked by and the audience hummed with anticipation and intoxication, there were chants of “Ike, Ike, Ike!” and a few minor fist fights broke out near the stage. After more than an hour of set-up time and an agonizing sound check, the room finally went black but no band appeared; instead, the sweaty crowd was left in the darkness to listen to a few songs by Rage Against the Machine and Cake.
When it had been just long enough to turn people from frantic to frustrated, a section of the crowd parted and I spotted Ike Reilly at the edge of the crowd as he stepped up on a small platform with his acoustic guitar. Reilly played the first half of the song “Waitin’ for Daddy” with only his acoustic guitar to accompany him, and then ducked down into the crowd and made his way up to the stage as the band burst in with a bass drum-heavy, hard-hitting bridge that made the audience scream.
Recent Ike Reilly performances have mostly catered to the new stripped-down acoustic sound of his latest digital EP, The Last Demonstration, and it was a treat to see him with his full band. The group has been together since the release of Reilly’s first album, and they play with the kind of intensity and clarity that can only be achieved after years of sharing practice spaces, stages, and bar tabs. Guitarist Phil Karnatz and bassist Tommy O’Donnell play off each other’s stage presence like foils in a theatrical production, shooting each other goofy looks and leaning close together to play in synchronicity. Keyboard/guitar player Ed Tinley keeps to mostly to the corner of the stage, underplaying his actual importance as a co-songwriter and producer of many of Reilly’s work. And drummer Dave Cottini is an animal, splashing water on his kit so it sprays and showers the area around him as he works his ass off to keep the whole group together rhythmically.
And then there’s Reilly, swaggering back in forth at the front of the stage with uneasy movements that I used to attribute to drunkenness, but which I now believe may be the result of a man tearing apart his insides and serving them up for the audience on a silver platter. A man that pushes himself so hard as a performer that he spends entire sets careening across the limits of normal human stamina to keep the audience jumping, swaying and singing up until the last note of the encore.
Reilly and his comrades of rock pulled the audience through a set that reminded me of my first few times seeing the band, during a historic four-hazy-night stand at the Turf Club in the summer of 2001. The energy on stage and in the audience at Station 4 rivaled those days, when the dance floor was always filled with the same 20 giddy fans; they played a lot of material off of their debut album, Salesmen and Racists, including a rare rendition of “The Assassination of Sweet Lou Diablo,” and old favorites like “Duty Free” and “Hip Hop Thighs #17.”
It’s hard to avoid the religious metaphors with Reilly, who displays a giant splattered angel banner at his shows and sings about redemption and guilt like any good Catholic boy should. But there is something there, something less obvious about his shows that keeps me coming back every time he passes through town. Something in the way the music washes over me like holy water; something in the way that his shows are the closest I ever get to attending church.
Am I speaking in hyperbole? Maybe. Maybe.
Photo by Andrea Myers.
Location Info:
Station 4
Artist Info: Ike Reilly
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