Dance Band, with Mel Gibson and the Pants, and Battle Royale at The Varsity Theater on 12/15/07
By: Pat O'Brien
Almost exactly a year ago, I attended my first Dance Band show at the 7th Street Entry. My hopes were high, and just as I was starting to get into it, a man from the audience climbed atop one on the monitors, then fell headfirst onto the cold, hard floor, sending him to the hospital and ending the show just a couple of songs in. Since then, I have seen Dance Band every chance I have had, and they have established themselves as one of the premiere live acts in the city. They backed it up in spades on Saturday.
Dance Band Crowd (as seen from the back of the Varsity - Photo by David de Young
The Battle Royale opened the night and their '80s-electro infused insanity was a near-perfect start. TBR features Grace Fiddler from One For The Team and Mouthful of Bees’ Mark Reitsma along with a couple of others, but this seems like a bit more than a side project for everyone involved, while the vocals are a little atonal at times, it seems sort of intentionally so, plus the songs are well thought out. Bottom line: it’s fun to listen to and ultimately quite danceable. The crowd responded by doing just that.
Mel Gibson & The Pants took up the middle slot and surprised me a little. The last time I had seen them I remembered them sounding a lot more drum ‘n bass heavy than they did Saturday. The songs are loopy like you think drum ‘n bass would be, but they’re more rock heavy, almost classic rock-like at times, and the lyrics are rapped not sung. It was definitely an acquired taste, but the detailing of many of the songs (spare use of a vocoder, a slew of effects spread out over the course of the set) made MGP strangely enticing.
About halfway through Dance Band’s set they did a cover of the Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime.” For a few seconds I looked at the band, looked at the crowd and wondered: are Dance Band growing up? But then I caught Captain Octagon dancing and flailing his arms in the air, a high school band drum corps hat atop his beard-adorned head and decided it’s not likely. But a band can’t live in a vacuum, and it was a spot-on reminder that they are aware of the outside world, even as mere visitors from Planet Dance. All of them had on suits or variations thereof, except for Captain Octagon, who had on most or all of his costume from Voltage earlier this year -- blue spandex unitard, cape, etc. -- though it was all removed down to his Speedo by the end of the show.
Dance Band were celebrating the release of their debut album, the dance-funk freakout (whatever that means) Dance Band Returns From the Land After Tomorrow and they were going to make this a party come hell or high water. Luckily, they weren't going to have to work too hard. This band wants you to dance, shake your babymaker, bust a move, whatever you want to call it, just don’t stand still. “We are not Stand Band” they are often quoted as saying in interviews and from the stage, and they are right. I was in both the front of the crowd (sweaty, younger, everyone was slightly pushy in trying to get even closer to the stage) and back (older, cooler temperature-wise, with better view of the overall crowd.) The Varsity sold out early, but not one person was standing still, whether they were just tapping their feet or dancing themselves into a near-convulsive state. Watching the crowd I was a little in awe of this. Usually the back is where people go who don’t want to dance, Saturday there simply wasn’t room up front for everyone that wanted to dance. From the back of The Varsity I was elevated a bit over the crowd, and it looked like film I’ve seen of Manchester’s legendary Fac51 (commonly known as The Hacienda) that gave rise to bands like The Happy Mondays and New Order. Everyone was a big, sweaty mess and looked elated to be. Everyone was laughing. Everyone was having a great time.
Dance Band isn’t a “serious” band, meaning they don’t tackle big topics (unless you consider zombie attacks a large issue plaguing society or you are really, really passionate about riding bicycles), but we need bands like this to remind us that it’s OK to have fun, let loose and embrace nonsense in all its glory. Not everyone is going to jump on this bandwagon (party bus?), but for those who have, it never fails to be the week’s highlight and they manage to make you forget you have adult responsibilities like work, school, bills and everything else that does not count as fun about life in general. Was I reading too much into what they were trying to accomplish Saturday? Maybe, but one thing was for certain: it was a party, it was a disco and it was definitely fooling around.
Location Info:
The Varsity Theater
Artist Info: Battle Royale, Dance Band, Mel Gibson and the Pants
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