My Friday night began, as I recall, with me grumbling something about all-ages shows, how they’re great when you’re a kid and somehow not so appealing after you turn 21. (I’m 29, so I’ve had eight years to ponder this, by the way.) It ended with me coming home and raving about how much fun I had, how refreshing this show was, and so on and so forth. To what shall we chalk up this change of heart?
Well, Branx, for one, is a venue that I could certainly stand to spend a lot more time in. And the bands, who we’ll get to momentarily, certainly deserve props. All three of them were excellent. But really, this show was about the fans – kids and adults alike. They knew it, the bands knew it, and it didn’t take me that long to figure it out either.
The lineup wasn’t quite a who’s-who of up-and-coming Portland acts – you would need more than three bands to achieve that, and The Thermals probably count as “arrived” at this point – but it was nicely representative of the PDX Pop Now! scene that does so much to support the city's burgeoning musical acts. As such, the lineup boasted a nice cohesiveness, and for anyone who needed it, it was an excellent primer to some of the best that the Portland music scene has to offer.
The first act of the evening was Wampire, who humbly (and with curious precision) announced that they would be playing for 28 minutes. Wampire, as I was already well aware, is one of those bands that’s just insanely fun to listen to: they are clever, catchy, eclectic, and they reward with repeated listens. They are, in short, a lot of good things, but one thing they are not, by any definition I can call to mind, is hardcore. So I was more than a little surprised when, the moment they started playing, the floor erupted into a sea of bouncing, sweaty bodies. It’s not that the music didn’t warrant it, but that there was a certain incongruity between the relatively mellow opening song and the vigorous physical rejoinder that was undeniable. My initial response was befuddlement, but that’s clearly an instinct informed by the decade and change I’ve spent self-consciously behaving like an adult. The reality is that there is something compelling about that kind of ingrained dedication to having a good time, to being that committed to the principle that when the music starts, you start dancing.
Guidance Counselor played next, cranking up the attitude dial a few more notches, and with it the energy level in the crowd. The two-man band – “We’re a band – sort of,” they declared, apparently alluding to their stripped down roster – combined aggressive synths, solid beats, and an unshakable sense of cool. From where I was standing – stage right, directly in front of the speakers – I could literally feel my clothes vibrating on my body when a particularly heavy bass line was introduced. With a crowd already demonstrably eager to have a good time, it was a perfect recipe for the success, and the band clearly fed off the energy being thrown back at them. After a string of new songs, which were clearly not disappointing anybody, the band finally busted out their established material. It seemed impossible to fathom at the time, but the atmosphere in the room got even more electric, with bodies flying in every direction. Any illusions I had that I might hold onto a particular piece of ground were quickly dispelled, along with the notion that I might somehow manage to take down a few notes in this maelstrom.
There was a longish break between the end of the Guidance Counselor set and the beginning of The Thermals, which provided an opportunity to hunt down some much needed water. It had gotten quite warm and humid in Branx over the course of the preceding set, and knowing that the Thermals would be coming on soon didn’t offer much hope for a reprieve. When the Thermals finally came on, it was in their usual nonchalant fashion – smiles, waves, “hi, we’re The Thermals.” Enough said, because once the music started, a bond was established between band and audience that would hold, unmitigated, as long as the songs kept coming. The band opened with “A Stare Like Yours,” and immediately the floor was churning again. Most of the crowd was singing along, several attempted crowd-surfing with varying degrees of success, but everybody was being thrown around. And then I lost track. My privileged station by the speakers once again proved unsustainable, and I abruptly found myself in the center of the room. Moments later, I was pressed against the front of the stage, and then back again. The remainder of the show was spent in this flux. The music didn’t so much recede or fade as alter in purpose. No longer was it an element of performance; it was simply a vehicle for the energy of the crowd, feeding it for the sole purpose of sustaining it. The party on the floor had, it seemed become the focal point of the room, an end in itself.
It’s not really possible, having been immersed in that environment, to hold onto your cynicism. I wasn’t the oldest person in the room, but I was close. And if it’s broadly fair to say that’s not a good feeling, it’s also the case that it was the younger people in the room who made the show what it was. I loved it. And I loved Branx, one of the few venues in this town that routinely opens its doors to fans of all ages. And of course, I’ll hand it to the three bands who performed on Friday night. Each knew exactly what they had on their hands when they began their set, and all three rose to the occasion.
