WeBloom Reviews

“Come early!” they told me last week, after I picked up my free ticket to the Threadless Grand Opening party/Hey Mercedes reunion show. The bottom of said ticket clearly reads “You must have this ticket with you to be admitted, however, this ticket does not guarantee entrance. Due to venue capacity limitations, admittance is first-come-first-serve. So, be sure to arrive early!”

So that’s what I do, arriving at roughly 5:00 to be ready for doors @ 6. The line’s getting ready to peak, it’s just around the block at my arrival, and in a half-hour or so it’ll stretch on for another block. And I could go on for hours about the breeze, but who cares? Right?

I grab a seat on the balcony and get ready to “deal with” the opening acts. However, I’m quickly caught off guard by the introduction of “new-style” juggler Marcus Monroe(www.marcusmonroe.com), who was hosting the show and from then on would perform for about 5-10 minutes before each band came on stage. He juggled balls, knives, and unlit torches to the beat of some blaring house/trance music. The enjoyment doesn’t come just from the skill itself(its hard to tell the difference between mistakes and intentional slip-ups), however, but from his movements. He turns juggling into a means of dancing. Supposedly he also juggles flaming knives and, on occasion, chainsaws. Though The Metro wouldn’t allow him to do so on stage.

When Freer comes out to play, the professional skeptic of opening acts blossoms from within me. I sit quietly and listen, but am surprisingly impressed by the first half of their performance. They don’t blow my mind in any way, but the front-man has a knack for making a simple keyboard hook fit the chorus to a punk rock song just right. However, I lose interest as their set starts to get slower.

Anathallo, however, could not have lost my interest if they tried. Their cd is coming out soon, and I really expect to hear about them from other sources in the next few months. They have a style much similar to the olden days of Architecture in Helsinki, with musicians jumping from instrument to instrument(usually some form of hand-held percussion, mallets, or horns.) Also, they have the best live use of hand-claps + foot-stomps, 2nd only to Tilly & The Wall for obvious reasons (and their choreography is 2nd only to Of Montreal.) So do keep your ears open for Anathallo.

Finally, I know who’s coming next, and sitting up on the balcony just won’t cut it anymore. I make my way down to the floor, and as Hey Mercedes prepares to take the stage by playing an audio clip from The Goonies (which, of course, consists of the lines “Goonies never say die!” and “Up there it’s there time. Down here it’s our time!”), we instantaneously remember exactly why a vast majority of the crowd is here, including the person a few yards behind me who’s going to insist on calling out Braid songs for the first 20 minutes.

With that Hey Mercedes takes the stage(with 4 water-bottles and a fifth of Jack Daniels in hand. All of which will be consumed by the end of the show.) As the Goonies clip ends and they kick the night off with Loses Control opener “Quality Revenge at Last”, I quickly catch on to the fact that I’m located in the prime meridian of the audience. Behind me, the crowd is stagnantly showing their appreciation by singing along, nodding their head, and belting the occasional one-liner at the top of their lungs. In front of me, however, we find the culturally diverse positive longitudes of Europe & Asia. Everyone is dancing (stretching the word “dance” as far as it’ll go before it gives way and snaps back in their face, or much more likely the face of the person a foot away from them.) People are flailing about, singing every word they can remember, screaming at the top of their lungs, drinking during every break in the lyrics, bumping into strangers like they’re not even there(because, let’s face it… They’re not. Tonight there is only yourself & Hey Mercedes in the room, and Hey Mercedes will not judge you no matter what you do), and throwing whatever appendage they possibly can into the air in their greatest act of triumph for the evening.

By three or four songs into the set, we pretty much all forget the fact that the floor is covered in spilled drinks, as well as many other things. We do NOT forget, however, songs from nearly 8 ago as Hey Mercedes stretches their set thin, making sure to cover the entirety of their career within an hour and a half. Life is perfect, until they play their closer, “Unorchestrated.” Even as we all know that they will be back in 5 minutes for an encore, the crowd is all too aware that there’s something incredibly heart-wrenching about Bob being left alone on stage at the end of the song, quietly singing “Nothing is wrong… We’re getting along… It’s over.”

Thankfully, the break before their encore seriously was only 5 minutes. (Any longer and I may have found myself in tears over that last performance.) As the band takes the stage once more, for what will presumably be the last time… ever, they don’t pick up & play instantly like any other band might. They take a moment to say thank you and express their enjoyment. Then they call their friends from backstage to come out and pour themselves a shot(Sadly, Chris Broach was not there.) They deal out their condolences for years worth of sleeping on couches, playing in basements, and sharing in the experience. Then everyone takes a drink. This, of course, includes the band… friends of the band… and anyone in the audience who’s still holding a drink(I had to get another for this.) Now, with sobriety long-gone, Hey Mercedes takes a bit of a lighter approach to their imminent ending with the song “Quit.”

They finish out their encore, their set, and their career with the closer from their first full album Everynight Fireworks. And so they end the way they started. “And where you are is where you’ll stay.” Hey Mercedes takes their second trip to the coffin, and that is where they will stay, experienced through memorial services via home stereos and ipods. A glimpse at the ghost of a good thing isn’t for the faint of heart, but like all experiences that aren’t worth missing, it’s few and far between, and over long before you’re prepared to see it off.

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