When a band sounds as slick in the studio as Porcelain Raft does, there is a real danger that the live performance will fail to live up to expectations. Studios can produce some magic results, and the temptation to attempt to recreate that experience onstage can be almost as precarious as the decision to blow off the polish and play with a raw immediacy at odds with the band’s recorded sound. Mauro Remiddi, the principal personage of Porcelain Raft, evidently has enough experience under his belt to know how to walk that line. At a sparsely attended Sunday night show at the Doug Fir, Remiddi, accompanied by Women’s Michael Wallace on drums, showed off a virtuosity that was all the more unexpected and rewarding for the tight, glossy production of the band’s full-length debut, Strange Weekend.
Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said of the opening act, Portland’s own Purse Candy. The duo specialize in synth pop rehashes of some of the ‘80’s less outstanding moments, with a setup built around keyboards and a MacBook. The band’s recorded material, though not bursting with depth, is listenable enough, and those more enamored with the ‘80’s than I might find something genuinely worthwhile there. Onstage, however, the inherent silliness of the music was belied by the apparent seriousness with which the band took their performance. Perhaps it is possible to put that kind of juxtaposition to good effect, but on this night it only served as a reminder of how many decades have passed since Kraftwerk first played the robot card, and how ridiculous this kind of music actually was the first time around. Still, the band’s eagerness to play for the small crowd of early arrivers and their sincerity in thanking them afterward was touching. Not having been awed by their performance, I was nevertheless won over by their earnestness. There are worse causes to get behind.
Porcelain Raft took the stage a few minutes after 10pm, opening with “Drifting in and Out,” the first track off Strange Weekend. The sound was as advertised: rich, nuanced, tight. The song sounded so much like its recorded counterpart, in fact, that I briefly feared that my concerns had been realized: the band would venture into no territory not already fully explored on the album. But as soon as Remiddi began singing, those concerns were dashed. There is a certain purity to his voice on the record, but live, he sings with a slight rasp, lending his voice a visceral quality that wonderfully complemented the element of sonic experimentation that the duo introduced to the performance. Wallace’s drumming, frenetic and occasionally chaotic in situations where subdued restraint might have sufficed, is owed as much credit as anything for the dynamism of the performance. Wallace evoked a menacing, discordant specter, and it was fascinating to watch the rapid-fire movements of his drumsticks. The John Bonham tattoo that adorned his forearm provided a succinct but unnecessary declaration of his musical influences; few Zeppelin fans, I’m guessing, would fail to make the connection.
If there was a weakness to the performance, it was the limited catalogue upon which the band had to draw. As one would expect, the set heavily favored material from Strange Weekend, but Remiddi & Wallace could have stood to work in more tracks from Gone Blind, the band’s solid debut EP. Instead, barely 20 minutes into their set, they had covered nearly half of Strange Weekend, more or less in order. That stretch produced fantastic renditions of “Shapeless & Gone” and “Put Me to Sleep,” but also constituted, literally, half the set. The second half, capped off by “Unless You Speak from Your Heart,” was equally entertaining, but the buzz the duo had generated was noticeably dampened when they walked off stage at 10:45. Some in the audience held out hope for an extended encore, but they had to contend with the reality that, in fact, the strongest portion of the repertoire had already been covered. Remiddi and Wallace seemed to have arrived at a solution when, after an absence of barely a minute, they returned to the stage and enthusiastically jumped into “Eye of the Tiger.” Though greeted with wild cheers, it proved to be merely a tease. Instead, they contented themselves with a one-song encore that felt like a consolation prize, and once again walked off the stage, this time for good. Their entire set lasted less than 45 minutes. There were some audible complaints at the end, and it’s hard to dismiss them, but for my part it worked: the performance was solid from start to finish, the energy never lagged, and the music stayed fresh. More disappointing than the truncated set, in fact, was the lack of turnout. Strange Weekend has been one of the best albums of the year to date, and it comes as a surprise that more Portlanders have yet to discover it. Cross your fingers for a second chance.
