I have to be honest – I really kind of wanted to see Wavves self destruct.  I obviously wanted to see some Wavves music live, but after hearing the crazy story about his Barcelona meltdown from last summer, I wanted to see them get crazy, get in a fight with each other, or just do something….nuts.  I think half the audience felt the same way because it felt like everyone was just waiting for something edgy to happen - for Nathan to fire back at the crowd, or for Nathan and the drummer to get in a fight and have someone walk offstage (or ideally pour a beer on the other’s head).  Unfortunately, none of that happened and despite a terrible mix and a bizarre venue, I really did enjoy the show.  Full review, photos and sample MP3s after the jump. 

I arrived halfway in the middle of the opener, Ganglions, who were less extreme lo-fi than Wavves, but still very much noise rock.  At times it sounded fairly unsettled, as guitars conflicted and the vocals were nothing more than a series of yelps.  While there wasn’t a ton of structure to their songs, and while the vocals kept getting washed out due to very heavy drums and guitar, I’m not sure that wasn’t somewhat on purpose.  I didn’t feel like there were very many actual lyrics anyways.  Overall, they were raw but cool: at times somewhat Titus Andronicus-y, just not as full, tight, or angry.  I did enjoy these guys.

Taking things in after Ganglions finished, this venue was very weird.  Didn’t hold much of anyone, they were selling no alcohol, the sound was pretty poor and the setup was ultra awkward.  The crowd was super young, alternative, and on the floor directly in front of the stage, they were definitely partying hard – moshing and slinging their BYOB beers around.  Which, by the way, The Lounge’s BYOB policy yields some interesting results – like malt liquor.

Nathan and drummer quickly set things up after Ganglions, and after a brief turnaround, and without saying a single word, they launched into a weird soundcheck that sounded nothing like their songs.  After this concluded, nathan says, “We are Wavves,” and launched into a cool, and very fast I’m So Bored.  All the songs were extremely loud and pretty much all drums and guitar as the vocals were so understated, echoey and quiet that they were almost completely washed out. 

Wavves played several songs, and they were all exactly what I expected them to be: loud, fast, and a party.  At one point, he mentioned how he was going to play a new song and it was more of the same: loud, fast strummed guitar and blasting drums.  Even in the slow sections, Nathan’s echoey, reverbed vocals are almost 100% lost; it was just a very extreme mix that didn’t kill the show, by any means, but did detract from it.

At this point, Nathan’s reputation is one that is so punk and so over the top (mostly from Barcelona), that myself – and the entire audience – believes that he could just go off the deep end at any moment.  He is perceived as extreme enough to do literally anything, and there seemed to be a feeling that we all wanted him to go crazy.  The crowd kept testing him with shouting out multiple “Fuck You!”s to him, but Wavves played on and finished the (extremely short) set.

Coming in, my biggest quesiton was how long he would play.  As Wavvves is under 40 minutes long, I did not expect him to be onstage for long, and I think he played about 35 minutes total.  Even though I am very familiar with his album, I had a very hard time recognizing the songs I knew for what they were due to the extreme mix.  (I know he played To the Dregs and No Hope Kids, and that’s about it).  Like I have said, though, the off kilter mix didn’t really bother me because I got what I wanted: a loud blast of noise rock from indy music’s current punkiest darling.

Wavves - No Hope Kids from Wavvves
Wavves – To the Dregs from Wavvves

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