Long Island emo outfit Brand New delivered an excellent conclusion to their run of hometown gigs with last night’s performance at New York’s Gramercy Theater. The show was the last in a string of four shows the band played at small clubs around the city, and were a far cry from the group’s appearance at the mammoth Bamboozle festival earlier this month, where they played before a literal cast of thousands. And so ended the emo boys’ North American tour.
The band’s live show gives equal weight to their loud, distorted numbers and their whispery acoustic tunes — a rarity in a genre that’s all too often either-or. While their repertoire includes more delicate acoustic guitar-driven numbers (”Play Crack The Sky”), Brand New’s sound — and success — is drawn from the songs that build up momentum to a perfectly executed explosion. When the moment arrives in songs like “Luca,” “Sowing Season (Yeah)” and “Degausser,” it is electric.
During their two-hour set, Brand New transitioned seamlessly between songs from their three releases — 2001’s Your Favorite Weapon, 2003’s masterpiece Deja Entendu and 2006’s The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me – as well as “Untitled #5,” from the collection of demos that surfaced last year. The club was packed with teenagers and twentysomethings screaming the words with singer Jesse Lacey from the very first word of opener “Seventy Times 7″ to the very last word of “You Won’t Know,” sometimes overpowering the singer’s slight, artful modifications to the melodies. On stage, the band performed against a metallic backdrop that served as both a reflective surface for neon strobes and a film screen for a projection of a two-headed Lacey, who loomed large over the crowd during “Okay I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don’t.”
The band brought out former tour mate Kevin Devine, as well as members of opening bands Anathallo and Colour Revolt throughout the show, culminating with a cacophonous ten-minute mess of frenzied percussion and distorted guitars. At least two dozen people crammed onto the tiny stage, banging on anything they could find — giant bass drums, pots, cymbals, each other — before launching into a failed attempt at Rage Against the Machine’s “Guerilla Radio.” Recognizing the song wouldn’t happen, Lacey laughed, waved and walked off stage leaving the crowd slightly confused, but mostly satisfied.
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- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC.
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