Live Review: Annuals with Manchester Orchestra @ The Bowery Ballroom NYC [10.31.07]

Halloween is traditionally a night of costumes, dress-ups, and masquerades. Things are intentionally not what they seem. Could that girl to my left be a slutty witch in real life? Sure. But it just doesn't seem likely.

With Manchester Orchestra second on the bill tonight, we have a major-label band dressed up like an indie. They wear dresses (for Halloween, not always) and rock harder than most American bands on tour tonight which is exactly why they have a deal with one of Sony's smaller labels. But, standing in front of you the smell and sound like an indie band - a really good indie rock band. Playing the biggest songs off their 2007 release "I'm Like A Virgin Losing A Child,"mixed with a few chilling solo performances from frontman Andy Hull, the band is rolling in it. Their set closes with Hull, after hinting at a Mountain Goats song in the bridge, alone on stage, finally putting his guitar on the floor and walking off singing, "it's back to the same old shit again." There is a depressing brilliance here and you can't miss it even if, like Hull, it's dressed in red footie pajamas.

After an extended set change, Annuals takes the stage. Like most bands with too many members, you immediately question if they really need all these people and all this stuff. Staring down the barrel of three keyboards and two drum kits, it's hard to see how anyone could use this much sound - no matter what the circumstances. What you don't know is that Annuals are a Swiss Army Band. Most of their members play two and sometimes three different instruments. It's not that they have too much shit on stage, it's that they can play too much shit on stage. Like a sports prodigy with a hall closet full of hockey gear, soccer balls, and baseball bats, this band brought all the things they love to do tonight - and like always, they use all of it.

Even though there is no industry artifice here and Annuals are an indie band on an indie label, they still dressed for the occasion. For Halloween the band dressed as characters from the HBO frontier-drama "Deadwood." Except that they used make-up to look like zombies. So it's dead people from the show "Deadwood" which, if you're scoring at home, is a joke that works on two levels. All double-entendre aside, the band rocks through it's set that reminds me of a more cinenematically-inclined version of The Walkmen. Sure, there's honkey-tonk sounding piano but it's often overlayed with sweeping synths and soaring choruses. This ain't The White Rabbits and thank God for that.

Annuals comes out a little flat and you can't help but think they're almost trapped by the amount of clutter on stage. But questions of space evaporate when both opening bands take the stage to sing vocals, pound on loose tam drums, and, like the keyboard player from Manchester Orchestra, take a set of drum sticks to the stage monitor. It's the most electric moment of the night and ask quickly as the other band members come, they go. As quickly as this all began, it ends.

So on the fifth night of a tour that will carry the two bands for at least another three weeks, everyone dressed up dead and no one actually died. What did really happen, which needed no costume, was two bands powered through their sets and left with a few more fans than they had before. Could it be that simple? Dress it up however you like - you play your tunes, punch your card and you move on to Boston. Even if it makes you a zombie.