physical sounds

I arrived at Jack Rabbits at 9:30 pm hoping to find a few friends in a large crowd as the opening band tuned their instruments. I did see a few friends amongst the dreadlocked heads, but unfortunately, the crowd was much smaller than I had hoped. Less than 40 spectators were present to witness a near-physical wall of sound. Too bad, so sad.
With tonight’s first duo, Dark Castle, the fog machines and deep red lights were in full use. It looked like a thousand cigarettes had been smoked. During their set, I realized something about appearances in a live performance. There is a real connection between the perception of a band’s sound and the instruments they play to make that sound. I’m not talking about actual sonic differences, but how the band looks when making their music. Case in point: Dark Castle took the stage with a muscular drum kit and a Flying V Gibson guitar. I expected the band to sound really heavy, and they did. But I wondered how differently I would have perceived their sound if they were sporting different instruments, like a jazz drum kit and a Rickenbacher guitar.
Even if the sound they produced was nearly identical, would it have seemed different in a live setting? Furthermore, if Christina Wagner took the stage with Dark Castle’s instruments, how different would her folk music sound?
In any case, Dark Castle definitely set the tone for the evening with their thick metal sludge still molten in the smelting pot. Their female singer (a term I must use loosely) belted out her guttural screams on what I can only assume are her favorite subjects: ponies, rainbows, and genital torture.
Unfortunately, the music meandered a bit, rarely offering the audience a discernable motif to look forward to. I didn’t expect pop gems, but a memorable phrase here and there would have been nice.
The second band was Antarctic, and fittingly, the room immediately got cooler. They were an odd fit stylistically, but they made the evening a more well-rounded experience, which was cool. They deftly extinguished the hellfire while reminding me how much I love watching bands live.
I used to get a high from live music, desiring to see a good band every night if possible. But it’s difficult to find great bands to see, so the effort became too laborious to sustain with enthusiasm. Seeing a band like Antarctic reignites my addiction, and for that I am pleased. Yeah, I detected a bit of hipster, and they pulled the old midsong-beer-swig, but I think they’ve really got what it takes to make an impact on Jacksonville’s music scene.
Jucifer, of course, was the evening’s other duo. As they set up their instruments, I was floored by how many speaker cabinets were stacked behind them and how humongous their drum kit was. As I soon found out, Jucifer is all about excess.
The room went black. NWA filled our ears for a few songs until all of a sudden, thunder. I’m serious, the room shuddered with the guitar’s low end, and the feedback slid in and out of the countless linked speakers. The rumble was so powerful I could hear the plaster vibrating when I stepped outside. I thought my cell phone was ringing the entire show.
As cool as it was to experience such a physical manifestation of sound, I wished I could hear more than just the clipped blast of a dozen amplifiers. I couldn’t hear any vocals at all, just guitar and drums.
Even if the evening wasn’t a revelation in new musical ideas, it was worth experiencing the sounds. Too bad there weren’t more fans there to experience it with me.