The Faint with Gang of Four, Pictureplane, and DJ Jake Rudh at First Ave, 9/29/16

Gang of Four

I was very tired on September 29. I had spent the preceding 24 hours frantically getting work done, driving the ~4.5 hours to Madison, seeing the Mountain Goats, snatching a few hours of sleep, and driving home, only to cram in another partial work day. I wasn't sure I had another show in me, especially one as high-energy as I knew the Faint's show would be. But I also couldn't talk myself out of it.

The first time I heard the Faint was the week I turned 16. Bright Eyes was playing with them at Cain's Ballroom, the legendary Tulsa music venue of my youth, and my mother bought a half dozen tickets for my birthday. I invited some friends, and we made our way to the show in the cars of people that had driver's licenses. It was a pretty transformative show. I got hooked on the Faint, first and foremost, and it was my first Bright Eyes show. But arguably, this was the show that made me fall in love with shows.

Tired or not, I dragged myself to the venue, betraying my mandate to always get there early. I arrived during the Pictureplane set and downed a Red Bull or two. The crowd was small, milling, restless. Pictureplane is Travis Egedy, whose singing and synthesizers kind of blurred together for me in real time and in retrospect. His style was called witch house, or dark wave, both new to me. I was underwhelmed, but I was also undercaffeinated. I would be willing to give him another shot some other time.

Todd Fink and Jacob Thiele of The Faint

Gang of Four was kind of surreal. English post-punk formed in the late 1970s, with one founding member left, the others replaced by vastly younger musicians, on tour with my old Saddle Creek favorites. It was a highly enjoyable set, though. The guitars were fun and the singer was captivating, though his tendency to switch between three different microphones on stage was weirdly distracting.

The Faint was as high energy and entertaining as ever. There was dancing, moshing, a crowd-surfer. Todd Fink has this charisma about him on stage -- you can barely stop watching him dance and sing. But if you do look away, all the other guys are also incredibly fun to watch. The whole band looks like they're having the time of their lives.

I did too, for the vast majority of the night. I danced a lot, and generally enjoyed myself. They played plenty of songs from my two favorite albums, Wet from Birth and Danse Macabre. The crowd at these things is always so exuberant that you have to come out of it with trampled feet, and having taken a couple of stunning elbows to the kidneys. But usually this is all by accident, or as part of the collateral damage of straying into the mosh pit. This time I had a really drunk, and probably high, dude next to me who kept elbowing people in the face with his wildly flailing arms. When the woman in front of me, on the rail, confronted him about it (very gently, I thought) he got nasty, pushing,

Todd Fink in motion

hitting, groping, and grinding on her (and me) and telling us to leave. I was getting frustrated and hoping a bouncer would step in. Finally his friend, who had been ineffectually asking him to chill out, grabbed him by the cheek, with a fishhook-like gesture, and dragged him out of the crowd. I was relieved.

After the show, when everyone was gasping and sweating, the band hung around by the merch table and greeted people. Dapose gave me some advice about how to survive northern winters, and we discussed that first Faint show I caught.

Overall, excellent night. The Faint remains one of the most consistent live shows I can recommend.