Sebadoh Flash Brilliant Moments Onstage
BOSTON -- About halfway through Sebadoh's riff-charged performance at the
Roxy here Tuesday night, something unusual happened.
Unusual for an indie rock performance, that is.
During the bridge of the band's latest single,
bin/get-music/Sebadoh/Flame.ram">"The Flame" (RealAudio excerpt), a
topless woman rushed onstage and lurched toward singer/guitarist Lou Barlow. As the
loud Boston crowd gawked in astonishment, the busty woman was quickly ushered
offstage.
Barlow, obviously stunned, quickly shrugged off the incident and continued playing. No
devil signs flashed to the crowd, no grinding against the topless fan -- it was almost as if
nothing had happened.
For the thousand or so fans gathered in the posh ballroom, it was the night's sole "metal"
moment. The rest of the show, like most Sebadoh performances, was a pure experiment
in indie grunge-pop rock and in Barlow and singer/bassist Jay Lowenstein's unleashed
noise.
"It's kind of hard to concentrate without a topless girl up here," Lowenstein later
deadpanned to an audience who applauded its appreciation.
Tuesday night's show was the first for Barlow since he relocated to Los Angeles from
Massachusetts last year -- a move heavily covered by the Boston press, who have
supported Sebadoh for nearly a decade. As a founding member of the Northampton,
Mass., natives Dinosaur Jr., Barlow cut his eyeteeth alongside such local legends as
noise-poppers the Pixies.
It was in Los Angeles, though, that Barlow, Lowenstein and new drummer Russ Pollard
fashioned their latest album, The Sebadoh. Perhaps stealing a bit from the sunny
California scenery, it's "happier" than most Sebadoh discs, incorporating more pop
elements than such previous albums as Bubble & Scrape (1993),
Bakesale (1994) and Harmacy (1996).
Sebadoh's live performance, however, remained true to the band's history of lo-fi punk
rock. The band ripped through nearly 90 minutes of songs plucked from its seven
href="http://media.addict.com/atn-bin/get-music/Sebadoh/Ocean.ram">"Ocean"
(RealAudio excerpt), from Harmacy -- received the most enthusiastic response.
The highlights of the show included songs sung by Lowenstein, especially such recent
href="http://media.addict.com/atn-bin/get-music/Sebadoh/Weird.ram">"Weird"
(RealAudio excerpt).
Barlow, who early on told the crowd his voice was "real f---ed up," saved himself for the
band's poppier numbers, including "Rebound," the band's 1994 radio hit from
Bakesale.
On some songs -- including "Vampire," from Sebadoh's critically acclaimed Smash
Your Head on the Punk Rock (1992) -- Barlow and Lowenstein shared vocal duties.
Throughout the show, however, Sebadoh kept one thing steady: their trademark wall of
bright, white noise.
"Two Years Two Days," from Bubble & Scrape, started out slowly, even sounding
pretty. But by the time the chorus exploded into the spacious ballroom, fans were
bobbing their heads and erupting into small, impromptu mosh pits. During the funky
"Mindreader," Barlow and Lowenstein traded stringed barbs that created a screaming
barrage of feedback. "Drama Mine" gave the crowd much of the same, with Lowenstein's
Frank Black-like squeal pitted against Barlow's shredding guitar licks.
As awesome as the garage-raw sonics were, Sebadoh's finest moment came during
"Willing to Wait," their 1996 acoustic hit. Barlow, caressing his microphone and shutting
his eyes in a display of pained emotion, offered a rare moment of poignancy.
"I'm willing to wait my turn to be with you," Barlow sang passionately, holding on to the
mic stand for all it was worth. "Oh, when I saw you again, a beautiful friend/ She opened
up her heart and let me in."
"Lou Barlow is, like, an ultimate oxymoron," fan Chris Chen, 26, said before the show.
"He writes these songs about love and beauty, and then he puts these gigantic, painful
guitar riffs into them. When you listen to Sebadoh or Folk Implosion [Barlow's
side-project band, famous for the hit 'Natural One,' from the soundtrack to 'Kids'], you
feel the music, you don't just hear it."
The pleasure seemed plentiful both on and offstage Tuesday at the Roxy, as Sebadoh
kept the noise flowing for a crowd that happily sang along to nearly every song.