Concert review: !!! (yes, that's the band's name) delivered show that kept audience dancing
“This is pop and there’s no defense/Silly, it’s stupid, it’s just pretend/Comes in waves, it’s got nothing to say/And if you ask me, it’s better that way.”
“This Is Pop 2,” by !!!, written by Nic Offer and Joel Ford.
Tall and lanky Nic Offer took the stage in the Rumba Cafe last night without his band and nothing but an old-fashioned transistor radio in his hand, saying that when coming to a town he liked to check out local radio. After airing and rejecting several selections he offered something far better, the recorded rhythm track from his band !!! (generally pronounced “chk chk chk”) performing what could serve as the group’s manifesto, “This Is Pop 2.” Soon, the three musicians who performed on the recording took the stage and seamlessly supplanted the tape.
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Already, if felt like something special was in the air. With a 70-minute set, including encore, the New York band fulfilled that promise. By the second song “A Little Bit (More)” and its techno beat, the crowd in the little club was whipped into a dancing frenzy that didn’t end all night.
Surely, the evening was made more magical because it happened in a small, crowded venue. Nearly the entire audience moved as synchronous as a school of hundreds of fish in the ocean. It felt like an event that each person in attendance would talk about for some time.
Offer ran with the opportunity. Thin and tall with a head full of blonde curls, he looked like Soft Machine co-founder Kevin Ayers and behaved like an animated David Johansen. From the first, he danced maniacally with arms held high. He bounced up and down with such abandon that he came dangerously close to ramming the giant iron beam that runs the length of the club ending over the stage. He jumped into the crowd repeatedly, visiting the sidewalk during one song and ending up on the bar fruging madly during another.
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If his manic performance and knowing sense of humor reminded of Sparks’ Russell Mael or Cheap Tricks’s Robin Zander, it also was the goofy, over-the-top dance of a rave kid.
Through most of the show singer Meah Pace provided not only foil for Offer but also pumped up the fever with classic soul and disco vocals.
The band never let the energy lag, as it dipped into vintage funk, disco, house and techno beats. The difference between hearing those rhythms delivered by a live band rather than reproduced on recordings by samples and computer files was a revelation. And the audience responded accordingly, moving in an organic mass with the band for the whole set.
The crack rhythm section was key, with Mario Andreoni and Rafael Cohen trading off on guitars and bass and Dan Gorman on drums. During one of the evening’s highs, the two guitarists laid down an irrepressible groove with dueling Nile Rodgers-styled funk riffs. In the opening number Cohen delivered a scintillating solo that suggested prog rocker Robert Fripp. Andreoni added nuance to many songs with a host of contributions that, unfortunately, likely got lost in the mayhem.
The 12 song performance was filled with such delights. The sassy “Un Puente” rode a hora beat but was delivered in Spanish. “Panama Canal” reached far for its metaphor in just one of several highly amusing songs with Pace all in on the joke. The titular message in “Dancing Is The Best Revenge” was carried to the people by the ever-wandering Offer but given its emotional impact by Pace’s insistent repetition.
Best of all, the band built crescendo after crescendo as powerfully as a set played by a DJ but did it with the spontaneity and musical skill that can only be delivered by a live band.
Columbus DJ, rapper and singer Opus Wild played a short opening set saturated with auto-tune and driven by earnestness.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: !!! ('Chk Chk Chk') delivers high-energy in Columbus concert
