We rock fans have had a hell of a June thus far. I can't recall another month where there were so many appealing concerts taking place on Las Vegas' various stages for such a sustained period of time. Hell, The Police and Roger Waters played the same venue the same weekend. I wrote about those two shows in this week's edition (June 21) of CityLife, but there are two other recent gigs worth reflecting on briefly: Bloc Party's June 13 show at The Pearl, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's June 18 performance at Jillian's.
First, Bloc Party. It's impressive the English modern rock quartet keeps coming back to town. Vegas isn't exactly known for getting very many Brit acts with minimal-to-no radio airplay. But Bloc Party is that group that subscribes to the U2 and Oasis strategy of crossing the Atlantic and blanketing the States with concert dates regardless of whether that city is playing its music on their airwaves or not, as opposed to a promo tour that only hits the top 10 markets. The Pearl was the biggest local venue the band had ever signed on to play, though, come Wednesday, the locale only seemed half full. Chock that up to a ho-hum commercial response to this year's A Weekend in the City, which is less nervy, hit-laden and energetic than the band's celebrated 2005 debut, Silent Alarm.
And it followed that the material played from Alarm was more enthralling than that from Weekend, though the band infused a little more energy and oomph into the latter songs. That is, when the guitars were working and pumping riffs through the PA. Axe man Russell Lissack suffered instrument woes throughout the entire show, which compromised the fullness of some of the numbers and made for some awkward moments. During "Sunday," the band had bassist Gordon Moakes move over to a specially assembled second drum kit and singer Kele Okereke take the bass. Shortly after the song begun, Lissack's guitar began malfunctioning, and for the rest of the song, it was all bottom end and Okereke's crooning.
When things were running smoothly, the band sounded near triumphant, especially during this year's minor radio hit "I Still Remember," "Waiting For the 7:18," and Alarm faves "Banquet" and the set-ending "Helicopter."
And speaking of awkward, how must San Francisco's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club felt when it discovered its Vegas show would not take place at a standard club like University Theatre, but the adult equivalent of Chuck E. Cheese's? Since the all-ages University Theatre was shuttered for alleged license issues, all of its performances have been moved downtown to Jillian's, one of the three Neonopolis businesses still open. "We've never played an arcade before," said vocalist/instrumentalist Peter Hayes well into the band's 90-minute-plus show.
Which sounds snotty, but given the circumstances, the trio was good-natured — the band followed the arcade comment with an attempt at The Who's "Pinball Wizard" — and appreciative anyone showed up. Which the couple-hundred-strong crowd rewarded with copious applause, whether during chestnuts like "Whatever Happened to My Rock 'n' Roll (Punk Song)," or more subdued and acoustic numbers from its 2005 derived album Howl, or even its gusty go at Bob Dylan's "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll."
Most of the performance centered around its latest release, Baby 81, which, after Howl, is a louder return-to-form album, though most of those selections still felt informed by the band's dabbling into blues and folk on Howl. Thus, BRMC wasn't totally reverting into the thick haze of psychedelic, fuzzed-up guitar noise more prevalent in their earlier songs, proving it had indeed evolved further than its initial detractors had predicted it ever would. And yet, it was a total thrill to hear the band lay on the noise during the closer, "Heart and Soul," a 10-minute rager than built to a floodlit climax, only to degrade gloriously into feedback and pedaled distortion. BRMC showed every side of its musical personality, and as a result swept its audience into what was more of a journey than a mere gig.
