MY GAWD!! HOLY CRAP!!!
No no no, I mean NOT AT ALL holy crap!
The show at the El Rey on Tuesday night was, I kid you not, the most amazing show of command and energy I have seen in …. geez…. I’m trying to think…. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do this kind of thing quite like them. The lead singer/keyboardist Paul Meany and drummer Darren King must have lost about 3 pounds each just from sheer physical bashing, running, sweating buckets, leaping high onto keyboards, taiko-like drum breaks with the whole band turning to percussion, and just plain working the stage like true stars. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life seen a band work so physically hard. The energy level was set at a full 10 from their first number of the night, and went up to 11 some where in the middle, and went back down to 10 at the end. I tell you, these guys WORK for a living.
What is absolutely refreshing is that these guys are true musicians. Their music is introspective and spiritual as far as the lyrics go, a sort of personal approach to their faith, which you can take religiously, or leave it at being personal. The point is, that angle of the music is for them, themselves, and you can take it or leave it as you find it. I love that about them. Their faith is not brought into the mix in any other way. They make these lyrics because — that’s who they are, take it or leave it. The music itself is what they love, do, live in, and utterly rule at.
If you’ve never heard them, I’d say Paul Meany is a Sting=like (some specify Police-like) intensity, and when Darren King comes out and duct-tapes his ear=protectors to his head (he has a 2nd floor tom placed up high right next to his ears, as well as a serious kit), you realize that seriously RAWKING OUT IS WHAT THEY DO onstage. (They still flew off his head about midway through the night, and a few drumsticks went flinging as well.)
Watching Paul sing is to be happily in his spell. This is a guy that is not particularly eye candy in any way, especially when soaking wet, but he is so commanding that you immediately feel devoted — he has immense presence, and a sincerity and love of his fans that’s very evident.
Watching Darren drum is like watching a boxer in the 9th round. “!!!!” BRING IT ON. RAWRRR!!
Greg Hill and Roy Mitchell-Crdenas (huh? Crd?) have percussion and keyboard duty as well as their own shimmering guitar and bass, and they have their own, perhaps less huge, but powerfully solid, auras. Excellent, and integral parts.
Offstage, in recording, they have graceful, tasteful airy electronics and interesting toys in their quieter moments, and seriously grand awesome fullness of sound when at full tilt. They also are blessed with good friends who have obvious long-time recording savvy and have made a luscious, wet, West-Coast sound bunch of recordings for them, that represent well what they intend.
If you get a chance to go see them, even in the next town over, sell your damn clothes. GO!!!
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