| DEERHUNTER / revenge of the nerds |
| Written by Luke Oram |
| Tuesday, 16 June 2009 14:34 |
 You can tell a lot about a gig from its patrons... It started with lady lachrymose on the door who ticked my name off the guest list, while mumbling something under her breath about freeloaders. Then down the stairs, to swim in a veritable sea of indie’s lost boys. Top 40-terrorists missed their chance to wipe out the entire population of Auckland’s alternative kids. Seriously, they could have done it all with one bomb to the Montecristo Room. The underground scene, destroyed in one fell swoop, leaving only traces of oversized woollen jerseys and Doc Martens strewn across Nelson street as evidence, that we ever existed. But, I digress. These are the best kind of gigs! There’s a sense that Atlanta’s experimental noise-rockers DEERHUNTER, have garnered themselves a tight-knit community who know no pastime better, than switching on the shoegaze and tuning out... The entrée was served in the form of sweetly strung collective DEAR TIME’S WASTE; the softly spoken post-folk Claire Duncan strumming a Rickenbacker, atop an ambient bed of noise from her subtle band-mates. A pleasant calm, laid before the storm of Bradford Cox & Co. Deerhunter’s avante-garde merchants of sound, have garnered a huge reputation for their fierce live shows. Almost equal to their band leader’s reputation for putting his foot in his gap-toothed mouth, when in the company of journalists. As Elemeno P’s Dave Gibson tweeted earlier in the day; “Someone should tell Deerhunter to just stop talking, just stop. Love your music but just stop talking”... Ambling through the dim light of the stage, that’s just what they did, letting their bombastic art-rock speak for itself. ...And it didn’t speak, as much as scream, with psychedelic fervour. With Deerhunter, it only takes a few bars to be reminded of the Karen O comment that served them so many press favours – onstage, the Atlanta quartet are a near-religious experience. Songs served as mere launching pads for frenetically fuelled jam-outs, with Cox playing the geeked-out ringmaster. The plaster of the Montecristo Room pillars threatened to shake themselves loose, as the boys made each song into it’s own wall of sound, only to have it collapse beautifully upon itself. The ever-stage shy Lockett Pundt hid behind a pillar for most of the gig, letting his presence be felt, rather than known... with his reverb-soaked guitar work canvassing the rhythm section and channelling the ghosts of Sonic Youth. Bassist Josh Fauver cut a swathe through the destruction, emerging from fizz-point fuzz with driving bass lines, while behind him Moses Archuleta worked almost tribal rhythms into a showdown, urging the beast in and out of gallop.  It was less of a rollercoaster and more of a beautiful, assault and battery. Atop all of this, Bradford Cox quietly mischievous and smug in the band’s mastery of the live scene, emitting effected and reversed wails at the height of each movement. His smug, toothy grin escaping only in his ecstasy moments – but it was not so much a grin of triumph for a young punk who has climbed to the peak of the music world in record time. It was more a smile of the nerd’s revenge – the glory of the kid who found a whole lot of people to love his noise.  More DEERHUNTER & DEAR TIME'S WASTE live photos HERE. |
