Live Review: Liars and No Age @ Warsaw [2/9/08]

Lovers of noise, unite! Saturday night at Warsaw under all those chandeliers and those big fake 18^th century paintings, Liars and No Age played a show that gave a perfect argument for the joys of noise. There was a yin and yang contrast/complement in the combination of these two bands, which have been and are touring together through these United States.

No Age, to put it too simply, are West Coast through and through. They were friendly, open-faced, sunny characters, who played sweet oceanic throb music with more than a hint of shark-attack punk bite. You know how Sonic Youth was really inspired by the hardcore bands of the 80’s? You know how they reworked that hardcore punk energy into noisy, extended, complicated bliss? Well, No Age, made up of singer/drummer Dean Spunt and guitarist/noisician Randy Randall, rethink the Sonic Youth noisescape back through hardcore. If Sonic Youth was “art” (whatever that means) doing hardcore, No Age is hardcore doing “art.” Another way to put it: you know how so many hardcore songs begin and end with that little splash of feedback that you never really pay attention to? No Age turns those forgotten little nuggets into epic worlds of sound (think of the wide open spaces of “the West” or, again, the ocean) while keeping the simple, fun, jump-all-over-the-place punk song in the middle. “Dead Plane,” which ended the set Saturday night, was a particularly ear-loving collection of sounds. At the end of the extended feedback that closes the song, Randall threw his guitar into the audience so we could all join in the noise-making. No wonder these guys still do Todd P shows and loft gigs! They are thoroughly democratic and self-effacing.

Liars, on the other hand, are East Coast dionysiacs, with the infinitely charismatic Angus Andrews leading the audience into semi-ritualistic rhythmic off-headedness. On Saturday he did this while remaining (mostly) seated, a necessity due to a recent back injury. I am tempted to say that seeing him perform live completes the sound you hear on the albums. It’s hard to get his deep set scowl and hieroglyphic movements out of your head. It’s hard not to think you’re part of some strange cult as the drums pound, the shards of guitar fill the air, and the audience screams BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD at the top of their lungs (thank you thank you Liars for playing “Broken Witch” in the encore). While No Age enfolded us, hugged us in pastoral ease, Liars pierced us with polyrhythmic tectonics; we were possessed and forced to move. “Plaster Casts of Everything” rocked like the Liars-ified guitar riff song it is: “I wanna run away/I wanna run away.” Even the chilled out “The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack (“I won't run far”), stark in its contrast, still hit the zombie trance part of the brain. Literally, enthralling, with an emphasis on the old sense of it: enslaving (John Donne: “for I / Except you enthrall mee, never shall be free”).

That said, something should have happened to all of us, all the hipsters, all the watchers, everybody in the audience, something strange and vaguely forbidden. Some sort of click of a new recognition of the world. For some, I think this happened. But for most the show ended, the lights went on, and we went back to the less magical night place we were stuck in, “where you going now?”

-John

More Great Photos By BRYAN BRUCHMAN