Audio By Carbonatix
Dr. Dog, Here We Go MagicSouth Side Music HallNovember 13, 2010
Better than: hanging out with a bunch of college students anywhere else.
On Thursday, Dr. Dog brought quite the diverse crowd to the South Side Music Hall.
They had the token indie rock fans, loads of SMU undergrads, and an abnormally high amount of dudes wearing Texas Rangers ballcaps. But the lowest common denominator shared by the fans and the band alike? A serious hankering for a good time.
And that’s exactly what happened onstage from the first note to the last of Dr. Dog’s near two-hour set.
The members of the band emerged from the backstage area like a
bunch of kids in a neighborhood gang.
They picked up their instruments,
greeted the half-full room, and launched into “Stranger,” the first
track from their new record Shame Shame. They were tight — and you
could tell that there was a certain freshness and excitement that came
with playing new songs.
But, along with introducing new music, they had some
other tricks up their sleeves for this tour. The stage was covered with
intelligent lights that synced swirling beams with each song and shot
them all over the room. It seemed like a slick move from a band that
typically eschews anything new or high-tech in their music. But maybe
they’re attempting to join the rest of the music world in the 21st
century — after all, their new record is the first one they’ve ever
recorded in an actual studio.
Despite the
lights feeling slightly out of place, they were a nice addition to an
already exciting performance from a band that has played together for
years.
And those members were completely in sync with each
other from their brilliant Beatles-esque vocal harmonies to their string
bending dual guitar solos. But that familiarity was to their detriment
on songs like “Worst Trip,” which was sped up significantly, and the
lazy beginning of “Die Die Die” during the band’s encore.
It was the new songs that saw the band truly vitalized. “Shadow People,” the
band’s new single and the best song of the night, energized the entire
audience. That energy continued on the gritty minor key “The Ark,” which
features one of the sexiest and most sinister guitar solos since The
White Album.
Opening act Here We Go Magic‘s
set ebbed and flowed from one song to the next. It’s rare to see a band
build so much tension in each song with such minimal instrumentation.
Yes, there were five people on stage, but each member really held back
in order to let the songs build organically.
Critic’s Notebook:Personal Bias:
I thought Dr. Dog’s performance was really good, but I couldn’t help
but think that it would have been so much better in a smaller, more
intimate room. The subtlety and whimsy in their music got lost in the
high-tech speakers and intelligent lights.
Random Note: Here We Go Magic really stole the show for me.
By The Way: It was a shame that the crowd talked through one of Here We Go Magic’s best songs “Casual.”
