Battles at The Bourbon Theater – Lincoln, NE 7/18/11
This past Monday, I capped off my evening by heading to downtown Lincoln’s Bourbon Theater to see Battles. The NYC (recently made) trio brought their brand of post math-rock (despised term, I’m sure) to Lincoln in support of their newest recorded offering Gloss Drop – which is out now on Warp.
I’m not a huge Battles fan. I mean, I like them and I like their approach but I can’t say I was ever overly excited by any of their records. I don’t even own the new one, though do have, to the best of my knowledge, all their prior releases. Upon their inception, I was excited by the prospect simply given the members in the band. Battles is lead (if there is a leader) by Ian Williams who was in Don Caballero- a band who could have their picture in the dictionary next to the definition of “Math Rock.” I was a huge DC fan but was also just as big, if not bigger fan of his other project Storm & Stress. I’ve always thought of Williams as a master of his 6-stringed craft. Drumming duties for Battles are pounded out by John Stanier who also played for Helmet – which takes me back to high school. The band also has Dave Konopka, who was formerly in Lynx. Up until Gloss Drop, they had avant-vocal-weirdeo Tyondai Braxton doing his thing.
The thing that I love about listening to Don Caballero records is the shear precision of it all. It’s so spot-on that at times you wonder if it was even made organically. Battles takes that to a whole new level, in part because they utilize so many processors and loops and digital this-and-that. When listening to a Battles record, I often think that the music I’m hearing could quite possibly have been made by robots. Of course the allure is in knowing that it wasn’t. And it’s that exact curiosity that got me to the show – I wanted to see them pull it off live. That, and the fact that Lincoln, NE isn’t exactly a cultural hotspot so I typically try to take advantage of the far-and-few-between opportunities to see progressive bands when they come through town.
I skipped the opening bands and walked in literally as the band played their first note to an almost packed theater. For the next hour plus change, the trio played an incredibly well rehearsed and orchestrated set. Aside from the conventional instruments (complete with Stanier staple high-hovering crash symbol), there were multiple keys that were played, pedals that were pushed and knobs that were turned. Williams had two keyboards angled up towards him – one to his right and one to his left. This afforded his 70’s NYC posture to face the crowd with his hip mustache quivering in the fan’s breeze and his guitar slung around his back, one hand on the keyboard to his left and the other on the keyboard to his right. I did make the claim to this all being well orchestrated – right? I was to the back of the theater but from where I was standing, I saw at least 2 laptops as well that Williams was using. Konopka, as well, was forever bent down, hunched over twisting or pushing something. Really, the only organic, real-time instrument playing was done by Stanier who is as polished as polished can be.
Not being super well-versed in their records, for the material that I did recognize, the trio pulled it off effortlessly- almost to a fault, which is perhaps my biggest criticism of the band. When I go see a band, I want to see and hear them play songs. The key words here are “them” and “play.” Battles is a sort of cross between a conventional rock band and an IDM dude who sits on stage with a laptop in front of him manipulating sine waves. I love a lot of experimental music but one thing it is not is exciting to see live. It’s the equivalent of watching someone check their e-mail, and you can’t even see the screen. Not that Battles was to that extreme but at the same time, it’s not as if Williams and Konopka were actually strumming their strings or even playing the keys at all times. Maybe half – at most. They relied on loops and whatever else – which I get, is part of the point, but I guess I’m criticizing that point. At times, after creating the loop and hitting a few Keys, Williams would dance around looking like an actor at a disco who earlier in the day missed the casting call for Taxi. After the irony had faded, he would sometimes almost look bored. Personally, I like to see musicians, especially rock musicians have more to do rather than less.
Stanier saved the day though as did the two rectangular screens that shadowed him. The band had an incredibly well-calculated and dialed stage presence. Behind Stanier were two large rectangular video screens that periodically showed various images. I typically think stuff like this is gimmicky at best and usually conclude it to be a waste of time, stage space and resources. Here, the work and presentation of what was shown on the monitors was almost essential to the overall presentation of the band. In large part, this was due to the restraint and good taste that can be credited to whoever prepared the material. Gloss Drop has a number of guest vocalists on it – none of which were present in person at the show. They were there via the screens though that had them and their lyrics perfectly synced as they sang along with the band in real-time. Other artsy-fartsy stuff would periodically come across the screen. The thing that made the material so appealing is that there wasn’t always something on the screens and when there was, it was cool and mattered.
Following the set, the crowd decided that they needed more so Battles did the polite and expected thing and returned to the stage for an encore – which you can see on the attached video I found on YouTube. A few minutes in, I decided that I had had enough and left.
With what become some of my favorite movies, often times during my first viewing of them, I can hardly make it all the way through. The thing gets over and I think, “I’m glad that’s over. What a waste of time.” But then over the next few days, I’ll mull the thing over in my head and think about it from different angles and then I’ll watch it again and realize that the thing is great. That is what Battles was for me. The show was good but my initial impressions were a bit dry. I chalk this, in part, up to not fully processing what I was seeing and hearing. I’ll maintain my position, though, that the band could do a better job of actually playing their instruments in an attempt to give their live presence a more organic feel. That said, I assume I’m the minority in this opinion. However, the more I think about the band as a whole, I think there was a lot of cool and artistically relevant stuff going on. Now, I want to see them again.