Better Than: Wait... is Daft Punk playing SX?!
The duo has been releasing albums of lush soundscapes for nearly 14 years, and last night's performance provided an up-close encounter with the band's deceptively simple sounding music in the sonic flesh -- complete with a perfect reel of grainy and distressed visuals and film clips that truly enhanced the experience.
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Pinback has never followed the pack. This was indicated by the band's unique sound and lyrical content relative to the legion of indie-rock peers that came from the class of 1998. The opening act, JP Incorporated, the group selected for this tour was a breath of fresh, super-weird, but none-the-less fresh air.
From someone who goes to shows on a professional basis: The opening band format has grown pretty stale. More often than not, they're just there to mark time while your girlfriend puts on her third outfit for the evening and tells you she "has nothing to wear." That's not to say we don't occasionally catch great bands in opening slots -- just that it's really quite alright to switch it up now and again, because we really don't want to sit through another post-Death Cab flannel-panel on a Wednesday night.
JP Incorporated opened the show for Pinback. What exactly is JP Incorporated? A man in a Carolina blue blazer and a turtleneck singing mock TV theme songs and conducting a survey to see how these programs might market in South Florida.
The performance was like a live action Tim and Eric sketch, complete with ridiculous powerpoint visuals, painfully awkward dance moves, and audience participation. The shows presented included Jazzbot Extreme, a monster truck that turns into a jazz machine with flaming saxophones, Gymnastics Dad (from the creator of Blossom), and our favorite, Lieutenant Custard and his Banger of Time, a program about Lieutenant Custard having adventures in time travel while on a magical breakfast sausage.
Pinback's three gents took the stage to an audience that had grown from an awkward gaggle to a nicely pack room. The band featured No Knife's Chris Prescott on drums. The set began with "Victorious D" from Offcell. The band immediately sounded album perfect as they warmed up for the long run of songs. "True North" from most recent release, Information Retrieved, made for an impactful second song, and put Prescott's formidable drum chops on display for the rapt audience.
The band's new material worked extremely well with the old favorites in its set, but the opening guitar plunks of "Non Photo-Blue" brought the audience to an excited sway. Zach Smith strummed, plucked, and flicked away at his bass, sounding like the bastard science baby of Level 42's Mark King and the late John Entwistle, and building a foundation of moving chords and rhythms for the band's understated vocal melodies and harmonies to play out over. In the indie-rock world, virtuosic musicianship has always been kind of an uncool thing; however, Smith's bass playing deserves so much more mention than it receives. Smith played last night in a way that was technically intriguing to be sure, but more importantly, his intricate touches and extended chordal work served the songs perfectly -- a rare case of musical athletics with a purpose.
To guitarist and vocalist Rob Crow's delight, some fans close to the stage had donned T-shirts with an old setlist printed on the front. The formidable guitarist laughed from beneath his wizardly beard while explaining that the band was going to perform that exact same set -- that is, if it was OK with the audience member. And we're glad they were cool with it because the set was as balanced between deeper album cuts and hits as any fan could have hoped for.
