Matt Pond/Dios (Malos) Review

Matt Pond PA, Dios (Malos)
Double Door, Chicago
Monday, February 20, 2006

I couldn’t believe it and neither could Matt Pond. What were all those people doing at the Double Door on a Monday, for a band that have never headlined a Chicago venue larger than the old Fireside?

Matt Pond PA have been milling around the indie circuit for seven years, stuck in a groove where they’re perpetually blasted by the Pitchfork cognoscenti and hidden from vast legions of Coldplay and Counting Crows audiences. Their last two albums, Emblems and Several Arrows Later, helped land opening slots for Keane and then Liz Phair tours, but Champaign-based Polyvinyl is still their most noteworthy label home, and that was back when PV was still in dumpy Danville.

Staring — incredulously — out at the large audience, Pond himself quipped he was “ready to be angry and bitter” about a dismal showing, and profusely thanked the audience for coming. But the clues started in as their set wore on, and requests flew in, though; one in particular tipping the assembly’s hand: “Champagne Supernova!” That’s it! MPPA covered it for the most recent “O.C.” soundtrack.

Pond has been vocal about his frustrations during the last year, in which key band members departed, equipment was stolen, and a series of drunken mishaps hardened perspectives that the gig was never going to pan out. So it was surprising he’d skip the opportunity and dismiss the Oasis smash, likely sending portions of potential fans unimpressed. But those who stuck around caught the full brunt of Several Arrows, MPPA’s most aggressive work, relative a term as that might be.

“So Much Trouble,” “From Debris,” and “Spring Provides” nearly galloped out of their replacement Les Pauls and hollowbodies, removing some ache from Pond’s lovelorn rasp and putting some actual bite behind his incessant sarcastic banter. The grit also provided some leeway for indie-pop numbers “Halloween” and the title track, which tend to run together in his cello-aided performances.

Between large gulps from Guinness Draught cans — you’re s’posed to pour those in cups, dude — Emblems was treated like their only other album, with “Measure 3” and closer “Fairlee” among the scant, pre-2004 morsels. Maybe it was a nod something in the past hasn’t been working. It didn’t appear Pond knew what was now, but he’d better figure it out. And quick.

News of Grandaddy’s breakup must have brightened opener Dios (Malos)’s year, leaving the Hawthorne, California band free to roam the broken household appliance national forests on their own. So named because Ronnie James Dio had a problem with them being called plain Dios, there’s little else these guys do to offend. Loaded with frisbee golf, baked-on-Saturday-morning pop, their 45-minute set felt like refuge from My Morning Jacket’s distancing reverb.

Playfully nicking “See how the run” from The Beatles in “Feels Good Being Somebody” or faking a piano-concierto interlude, brothers Kevin and Joel Morales — bundled up in the cold Double Door — had their fun. Drummer Jackie Monzon had a look on his face the entire time like he had forgotten something, though it didn’t affect his duties one bit. It’s that level of concentration that could do Dios (Malos) in.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly