Fast paced? Check. Crowd-surfing lead singer? Check. Lead guitarist standing on kick drum facing the drummer in classic guitar pose? Check. In short, Cage the Elephant brought all the requisites for a good show, especially as this was the best (read: only) stop on the tour. Lead singer Matt Schultz greeted us early with several, "nice to meet you"s and brought enormous energy to the stage, never standing still while belting out his lyrics. Unfortunately the vocals were a little hard to understand at times due to ambient noise, except on those few tracks with the best known, chant-along lyrics, such as "In One Ear" and "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked," which features a southern flavored slide guitar intro. As High Dive is a smaller sized venue, Cage the Elephant incited a respectable first fours rows to mosh, which clearly pleased and motivated the performers. Matt Shultz took full advantage of the tight throng of bodies and dove straight into the dancing crowd. We gladly held him up and passed him back to stage when the time to sing was again at hand. All of the band was clearly feeling their music: bobbing heads, moving around stage and at times even leaning on one another. Matt Schultz even playfully used his microphone to sweep the hair out of bassist Daniel Titchenor's eyes.
I can't help but feel that the debut album is actually a side project some bigger band assembled so they could play around with new things, something along the lines of Blink 182's side project Boxcar Racer or The Transplants. The sound has been described as a mating between the White Stripes and the Stooges, but we all know that cross-breeds are sterile. The high point of the show was certainly when Matt Shultz jumped off the stage but instead of crowd surfing he took a couple of seconds to position himself on some fellow's shoulders and then finished the song atop the crowd who yelled all the louder. This provided some great photos and video for this team until his path wound dangerously close to the photography equipment. Guess that's how you know its time to put away your camera and go join the crowd.
