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Live Review: Caverns Video Release Party feat. A Place to Bury Strangers, True Womanhood @ Rock and Roll Hotel (2009.06.05)

IMG_3651.jpgCaverns @ Aural States Fest

We’d prepared you for weeks and finally, this past Friday, the loudest bands in DC and Brooklyn combined for a night of earsplittingly beautiful rock and roll: the Caverns Video Release Party featuring A Place to Bury Strangers and True Womanhood.

Sadly, we missed True Womanhood (but really, if you had a free ticket to see PJ Harvey and John Parish, would you pass that up, either?) A friend of ours who caught the set assured me that despite the departure of Ross Kerr, True Womanhood has come leaps and bounds even since February. Recording with the Death By Audio crew has apparently done them good. We’ll catch you next time, guys. 

What more could I possibly say about Caverns that hasn’t already said? This is actually the sixth time I’ve seen them in the past year (and my third time at the Rock and Roll Hotel). I can say with certainty that anyone who saw them open for Frodus or their set at the Aural States Fest probably saw them at the top of their technical and emotional game.

Friday night’s set did not top those performances. Even still, Caverns never give less than 110% during their live shows, which is why even a Caverns show that doesn’t rank up with their best is still going to be better than so many bands who really think they’re trying. Furthermore, guest keyboardist John Kneip (from drummer Ross Hurt’s other project, Solar Powered Sun Destroyer) added some bass notes which nicely complemented Patrick Taylor’s higher octave melodies.

There still seemed to be some uninitiated Caverns viewers in the audience, which actually worked to their advantage. Throughout the set, more and more heads started nodding and more shouts of “These guys are awesome” showed up between songs. Lest there were any doubters at the end of their set, they showed the video for “Dance, You Son of a Bitch” on a large projector afterwards. 

One thing that has been a staple of the previous APTBS shows I’ve caught was the stark but highly effective lighting. All old photos of Oliver Ackermann and co. either have white beams or flickering reds and purples. This time, A Place to Bury Strangers chose to give us a more interesting visual representation of their sound…enshrouded in darkness and haze. With a dose of fog that rivaled a mountain morning, the lights hitting the stage did nothing but reflect right back into the audience. As such, the silhouettes of the concertgoers in the peppermint swirl-esque lighting resembled the cover of Feist’s The Reminder, while the band actually could not be seen through the dry ice that slowly but surely permeated the entire room.

Oh yeah…the music rocked, too. The Rock and Roll Hotel proved to be a far more hospitable room than their post-midnight weeknight show at the 9:30 Club (which drew roughly 40 exhausted people), so even though the room was not sold out, more and more people started dancing in front of the stage with happy abandon, demonstrating that the quality of the crowd matters just as much as the quantity. A few people sang along with Oliver Ackermann on occasional songs like “To Fix the Gash In Your Head,” but his low-pitched drone tends to get lost in the wall of sound created by his loud guitar work and effects pedals so the crowd was more inclined to either throw their arms around or stand slackjawed.  The latter seemed to be the movement of choice at the end of the set when they went into a five minute instrumental feedback session that rivaled a Sonic Youth set closing…except with a little more melody and volume. There may have been more than a few ringing eardrums after that exhibition of noise, but no one, not even the earplug-less patrons seemed to mind.

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12 Responses to “Live Review: Caverns Video Release Party feat. A Place to Bury Strangers, True Womanhood @ Rock and Roll Hotel (2009.06.05)”

  1. Ted says:

    True Womanhood was amazing.

  2. Ted says:

    Caverns was awful. Why anybody would think making instrumental metal and putting a tasteless piano on it was

  3. [...] Live Review: Caverns Video Release Party feat. A Place to Bury Strangers, True Womanhood @ Rock and … , more and more people started dancing in front of the stage with happy abandon, demonstrating that the quality of the crowd matters just as much as the quantity. A few people sang along with Oliver Ackermann on occasional songs like “To Fix the Gash In Your Head,” but his low-pitched drone tends to get lost in the wall of sound created by his loud guitar work and effects pedals so the crowd was more inclined to either throw their arms around or stand slackjawed. The latter seemed to be the movement of choice at the end of the set when they went into a five minute instrumental feedback session that rivaled a Sonic Youth set closing…except with a little more melody and volume. (tags: aptbs dc reveiew) var addthis_pub = ”; var addthis_language = ‘en’;var addthis_options = ‘email, favorites, digg, delicious, myspace, google, facebook, reddit, live, more’; [...]

  4. brian says:

    wow, ted, way to be a hater.

  5. brian says:

    btw, ted, their music isn’t metal. sounds like you just don’t have the right frame of reference.

  6. Ted says:

    yup your right brian my frame of reference is all wrong clearly caverns is like a new never before thought of genre that’s so mind numbingly amazing we can’t even begin to describe it.

  7. brian says:

    no, dude, i just don’t think you get what they’re doing.

  8. Sadam says:

    Ted’s right… Caverns needs to spend less time with their heads up Imperial China and DEP’s asses and focus on doing something unique like drowning out their unique and clashing sounds with tons of feedback, inaudible lyrics, less technical precision, a bunch of random instruments, and a keen fashion sense

  9. gomorrah says:

    I think above is describing the Beatles.

  10. Netanyahu says:

    I never thought I’d say this, but I agree with Sadam. Imperial China is fucking garbage.

  11. Ted says:

    True Womanhood is probably the best band on the eastern seaboard

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