The Faint at First Avenue, Minneapolis, with Trust and Icky Blossoms, 12/13/12
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Icky Blossoms!
On Thursday, I caught The Faint for the first time in years. It was the last night of their first tour in three years, so that maybe isn't surprising. It's one of those bands that stands out in my library - dance? electronica? that's different - and reminds me of times past. I'm too young to be as nostalgic as The Faint makes me. And damn, they put on a good live show. They formed in Omaha, originally including a Conor Oberst who stormed out of practice one day announcing he was going to devote more time to his other project (which would become Bright Eyes). That split turned out pretty great for both bands, I think.
Derek Pressnall at the mic for Icky Blossoms.
Icky Blossoms opened -- another Omaha gem featuring Derek Pressnall, my Tilly and the Wall/Flowers Forever hero. The day before, their van had broken down across the Canadian border, and I had feared they wouldn't make the show. It's hard to be a dance band and an opening act at the same time, playing to a sober crowd who just arrived and has never heard of you. Icky Blossoms performed admirably under the circumstances, and the crowd was soon dancing and cheering, despite the early hour. I have to say that their music plays a lot better live and in a dark room full of fog and lasers than it does driving by oneself in the middle of the afternoon. Context is everything, I guess. My favorite cut from their record is "Sex to the Devil," and others seemed to react positively to it, too.
Two members of Trust.
The lasers were so blindingly bright during Icky Blossoms' set that I began to wish I'd brought sunglasses. Luckily, no one else's lights were so bright. Or did I just get used to it?
Trust singer at the mic.
Trust played the second set. A guy in line had told me the band was French, and had been performing since the 70s. I was trying to imagine a strikingly old, French rock act. That turned out not to be true at all, but a quick search of last.fm yields a French hard rock band by that name that disbanded in 1984. Trust is, in fact, a Canadian synthpop duo (three members on tour, though). The singer's most prominent feature was his hair, which kept flopping into his eyes before being swept back again. They reminded me, bizarrely, of The Cure. I think it was just the not-quite-rhythmic, intensely apathetic dancing of the singer. And possibly the weird hair.
The Faint! Todd Fink in the foreground.
Technical difficulties after the first song. Working on a solution.
We were still on the front rail when The Faint came out, and up until that point the crowd had been fairly pleasant. My new friends on the first row were displaced just before the first Faint song by a jerk and his girlfriend. I call him a jerk because he kept doing things like thrusting his middle finger into the projector beam above our heads, and shouting about how awesome it was. At one point, he was talking about how he was going to throw his beer straight behind him and see who it hit, and I gave him a look that probably was full of my seething hatred. He wilted, and called me a buzzkill. That might have been the best interaction I had with anyone in the crowd from that point forward.
The Faint had taken a few years off, and I wasn't sure what to expect of a show billed as The Faint Plays Danse Macabre. They opened with brand new material recorded while they were supposed to be practicing for this tour, and then played Danse Macabre, more or less. It was interrupted by non-Danse Macabre songs, like "Desperate Guys", and wasn't played in order, but hit all the songs. They played some newer songs from Fasciination and a few from Wet From Birth (my favorite): "Paranoiattack", "Dropkick the Punks", "Symptom Finger", and "I Disappear".
More The Faint.
The crowd immediately behind me started moshing like crazy. People were clawing at the rail I was standing on, and their arms jammed in around me were starting to cause bruises on my arms. One girl, being pushed around by the crowd, decided to blame me for her tenuous grasp on the rail and started cursing in my ear. A blond girl came out of nowhere, eyes glazed, clawing and pushing, displacing me from the rail. By that point, I was ready to be out of the crushing masses, and we dropped back a few rows. Life was more pleasant after that, though I still had to contend with two drunken middle-aged men who displayed an uncanny ability to stand right in front of me, wherever I moved. The previously-mentioned blond girl was later arrested for biting someone at the front. Good times.
Backlit!
The Faint rocked hard, whatever my opinion of their fans en masse. I really enjoyed the show, and applauded my own decision to bring earplugs. It was LOUD. And bass-y. My esophagus vibrated uncomfortably for most of it. I think I might be getting old.
Here's my video of "I Disappear" toward the end of the night:
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