Ho-hum, just another night at the office for the greatest show on Earth. And we’re not talking Barnum & Bailey. There are rock concerts, and then there are concerts by the Jesus Lizard, one of which was Saturday at the Vic.
Within 30 seconds of the opening crack of Mac McNeilly’s snare drum, singer David Yow had launched himself into his favorite singing position–with his bellybutton facing the ceiling, held aloft by a dozen or so grasping hands in the mosh pit. A contortionist, clown and comic, Yow sported a nasty swollen bruise just below his left eye as he somersaulted, twisted and bobbed over the crowd with a look of almost bemused serenity. Somehow he managed not to miss any vocal cues.
He is the prodigal singer, forever fleeing the sanctuary of the stage for the sweating, swirling, screaming adventure that is a Jesus Lizard audience in Chicago, only to be dumped back against the monitors to gather himself briefly until the next journey into the maw of mayhem. A Christmas suggestion for Yow’s record label: Invest in a cordless microphone for this guy.
Speaking of record labels, much has been made of the Chicago quartet’s recent signing to Capitol, one of the six multinational conglomerates that dominate the record business, after a long tenure at Chicago-based independent Touch & Go. But the change in corporate scenery has had no demonstrable effect on the band’s uncompromising music.
On the band’s first Capitol release, “Shot,” the precision strikes of McNeilly, guitarist Duane Denison and bassist David Sims come through with visceral clarity. The three instrumentalists are a rock rarity–brilliant technicians who serve each other and the songs rather than their individual egos. They weave a spellbinding groove built on a near constant state of tension, as instruments drop in and out of the mix. Rhythms beget counter-rhythms, dense blasts of notes resolve gaping silences, and any instrument can break out into the forefront of a song.
The group’s awe-inspiring discipline is not lost on Yow, whose underrated bray of a voice is more nuanced, varied and precise than ever on “Shot.” But at the Vic, such subtleties were cast aside for a frothing frontal attack. Yow masterfully varies the pitch and pacing of his vocals when in a standing position, with a multiple-personality voice that would be the envy of Sybil. The trouble is he’s rarely standing. When he isn’t risking a separated shoulder or twisted ankle in the pit, he’s flinging himself around the stage like a rabid dog. The showman obliterates the artist, and the brilliant band provides the soundtrack to a riot stirred up by one of its own.
And to think, as Yow sang in “Too Bad About the Fire,” “The neighbors say that I’m weird.” The neighbors don’t know the half of it.
Opening were New York quartet Skeleton Key, which incorporated pots, pans and even a kerosene keg into their percussive attack. Six Finger Satellite followed with a spastic assault in which they distanced themselves from numerous other noisemongers with a healthy dose of Devo/Suicide-style keyboards.
