Junior Boys live!
Junior Boys
Metro, Chicago
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Ain’t no party like an indie-dance party and that’s why the indie-dance parties must be stopped.
Dancing, for the most part, is a celebratory thing. (We’ve seen some movies where someone shoots bullets at someone else’s feet and yells, “Dance, motherfucker! Dance!”) Our bodies weren’t just designed for the automaton tasks of modern life, and sometimes it’s good for everyone to bug-out a little. As Kevin Bacon, er, Ren McCormack quoted from scripture so wisely in 1984, “Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song. Let them praise his name in the dance.”
Attribute it to royal courts or whomever, but in Western Civilization dancing in a public hall also comes with style rules. From ballrooms to high-school gymnasiums to nightclubs, a person’s Sunday best has regressed to their Saturday-night hottest. It’s exclusionary but it serves a purpose: If you feel out of place in a dance club, it’s because you are out of place.
But as worlds have expanded, indie rock and dance music have begun to commingle, though not equally. Thursday night at Metro, the Canadian duo Junior Boys played electronic pop music to a group of people who might test their shoes at a place like Sonotheque, but wouldn’t be caught dead at Crobar or Vision. It was as if the band sent out a Twitter that read, “Bring us your unwashed masses.” And they came.
Tattered UIC cap? Wrinkled, flannel-print American Eagle button-up? Forgot to shave? Since Monday? And, how could we forget, own a hoodie? Maybe everyone heard about the show last-second, and grabbed what they could from the top of the (doubtlessly overflowing) hamper. Except Chicago didn’t just lack style, it lacked effort. The above articles could be woven into a coherent outfit, but if one looks and smells as if they haven’t showered in a week, the benefit of doubt is not awarded.
If they didn’t send a Twitter, Junior Boys encouraged the dress code by conforming to it. Strapped to a Telecaster that he scarcely needed, frontman Jeremy Greenspan looked like an overweight Bob Odenkirk who’d spent the morning tailgating. He and Johnny Dark were more in need of a hypeman than the drummer they brought, as the set’s selections – mainly from the unreleased Begone Dull Care (Domino) – needed more than newness to carry them through. A set-closing “In The Morning” encouraged fans who were only there for the songs to shake a little, though that could have been the actions of dirty socks trying to walk away on their own.
— Steve Forstneger
Category: Live Reviews, Weekly
