When I first tried to see Hot Hot Heat at the Roseland two years ago, I found out en route to the show that the band had canceled. They did at least show up for their gig at the Doug Fir Lounge on Tuesday night, undeniably a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, progress seems to have stalled at that point.
The evening began on a promising enough note. Local openers Derby ably put together a set of rhythm-heavy pop tunes that, if they didn’t exactly kick off a dance party, at least provided solid entertainment and succeeded in luring a good number of fans down from the smokers’ patio. Their set was strong and fairly well received, and their competence as a live band was undeniable, but while their tunes were catchy, they simply lacked the vitality to really stick and get people moving.
Following Derby was 22-20s, a band in a similar vein but with much more of a hard rock bent to it. These old-school minded Brits brought considerable swagger and a killer rhythm section to the stage, and though their stage presence was nothing special – they showed more charisma playing grab-ass with one another around the bar after their set – the band certainly succeeded in getting the room moving. Featuring a rather basic sound drawing on blues, garage rock and other assorted scuzziness, 22-20s are the kind of group that has considerably more power as a live act than they do on record, a fairly typical trait for bands of their ilk. What they lacked in creativity, though, they made up for in sleazy rock ‘n’ roll fun, and on the whole provided exactly the sort of service that the primary opener ought to.
What a pity, then, that Hot Hot Heat was not prepared to pick up the torch. They had plenty of prep time, as the intermission that preceded their set seemed endless. That intermission, much of which was spent dicking around with what was not, in the end, a very impressive or important light show, was not well spent. I took no notice at the time, but in retrospect I’m fairly certain that nobody ever did a vocal check the whole time. That lapse was apparent as soon as the band finally started playing, because Steve Bays’ vocals were completely indecipherable amidst the terrible din of the completely unbalanced sound.
Things came together a bit midway through the second song, when all of a sudden the vocal feed clicked in to a smattering of applause. Even then, though, the sound was so bad that it was often difficult to make out the songs underneath, and Bays & company, apparently oblivious to the problem, kept requesting that various elements be turned up, to the continuing detriment of their set. The bass at times was so bad that the reverberation alone was enough to drown out the music. Imagine a pimp stereo system inadvisably installed in a Geo Metro, and you’ll have some sense of how the Doug Fir felt on Tuesday night.
This is, of course, not intended to be a review of the sound at Doug Fir, which is normally excellent, but it was simply impossible to enjoy the performance when the music could not be properly heard. Some diehard fans got past it, and certainly the greater one’s familiarity with the catalog, the easier it was to distinguish the intended sounds from the general cacophony. But at no point did the level of enthusiasm reach the lofty heights I’d been led to expect. To their credit, Hot Hot Heat brought everything they had in terms of stage presence, but Steve Bays’ hyper-energetic dancing and surfeit of enthusiasm were not as contagious as they might have been under more optimal aural circumstances. It was, alas, a disappointment, and an unnecessary one at that. It remains unclear where the blame for that ought to be laid, but for me, it was certainly a poor introduction to a live act that is reputed to be so much better.
