Whose idea was it to put together this line-up?
That is the question I kept asking myself during the opening acts at the Pabst tonight.
The diverse trio of bands brought in an equally diverse crowd that managed to pack the lower level, but the line-up was also very confusing.
From the moment Editors hit the stage, they came out blazing and never let up. It became instantly clear why they were the deserving headliners, winning over the audience before Tom Smith even sang his first note. Smith's baritone vocals come off great live, if not better than on record, which he couples with sporadic movements and pained facial expressions.
Editors are clearly a tight group, and they never missed a beat. Their sound is defined, and intense, at times bordering on spiritual experience. Editors manage to mix danceable rhythms with typically depressing topics such as death and disease. Their dramatic, cinematic quality was furthered by a light show that was borderline seizure-inducing.
It started to make sense why they would follow such randomly placed openers. The cookie-cutter groups essentially make Editors look that much more unique, and talented. Perhaps their record company deliberately set them up with random groups who would bring in a varied audience because more people deserve to hear legitimate talent like Editors possess? Maybe I'm thinking into it too much, but why else would someone combine such groups that don't go together or complement one another?
In the end, Editors came out on top, surely gaining some new fans. I know that I, for one, left a much bigger fan than I ever was previously. Their exceptional performance put the openers to shame, and left the crowd wanting more.
Now if they could just get an Interpol/Editors tour on the road. Now that would be interesting.
The first opener of the night was Louis XIV, a low-grade garage rock band without a real sound of its own. The only unique part of the band was the addition of two violinists whose talent went completely to waste. Their lead singer is so desperate to be Jack White; all he was missing was the red and white outfit. He talks more than he sings, with most of his lyrics being indecipherable, sloppily delivered in between swigs of wine straight from the bottle.
The majority of the words the crowd were able to make out dealt with picking up girls, which also seemed confusing considering he doesn't appear to have showered yet in 2008. However, he probably threw together this band of dirty misfits in a last-ditch effort to meet women. I truly hope no respectable woman has fallen victim to his slurred, degenerate pick-up lines and poor front-man posturing. While worse bands do exist, groups like Louis XIV are at least a dime a dozen and bear no sort of connection to headlining group Editors.
While I was surprised to see Louis XIV had a handful of actual fans in the audience, it was no shock to see a worthy turn-out for second openers Hot Hot Heat. The Canadian pop-rockers have managed to land their videos on MTV's "Total Request Live", and have headlined shows of their own already.
While their style isn't as easy to peg as Louis XIV, it wouldn't be a stretch to group them together with the current crop of emo-pop bands such as Taking Back Sunday and Boys Like Girls (especially with a similarly unfortunate name). The music was energetic enough to keep the fans moving, but singer Steve Bays' whining voice grew tiring very quickly.
On a side note, he looks a bit like Sideshow Bob from "The Simpsons," or Carrot Top before he started steroids. But that's neither here nor there. The point is that besides bringing in a different, younger group of fans, they have no real business opening for a band like Editors.
