Last February, Titus Andronicus opened for Vampire Weekend at the United Palace with the 8 minute slow burner “Four Score”, unreleased at the time. The song starts as a folkie dirge till it kicks into high gear around the four minute mark. Not a good idea to be opening a VW set with and a mistake the set doesn’t recover from.
Seven months later TA leave it for the middle of the final set of their The Monitor tour and lead with the opening track off the sophomore album, “A Perfect Union”. An undeniably welcome to the band and their sound with the entire audience exploding on “Baby we were born to die” as great a rock chant as “Your life is over”.
There is no turning back after that: inexorable, powerful, perfect. The honest roar of rock and roll, the power of belief, of faith, of faith in the face of hopelessness. And here is the kicker. By Titus Andronicus’s standards, this was business as usual. Sure, lead singer Patrick Stickle’s parents were there, even his aunties. Sure it was the biggest headlining gig of Titus’ career, and sure, the end of the tour and the last night with Free Energy and Manhattan no less, but in the end: they didn’t do anything SPECIAL because, really: what else is there for the band to do?
At the start of the set Patrick announced that they were here to entertains us and his words should be pinned to every band in the worlds guitar. That’s exactly what they do and for 90 astounding minutes they do it the way it is meant to be done.
“Union” is a passionate singalong, “Richard II” is the next song, a relatively minor song on the album, and it isn’t a singalong. Both kill.
It is with”Richard II -with the fans getting “the one with my hand at your throat”, I realize this isn’t a special night. Titus are always this great. After months of touring, the slipperiness of long songs that weakened their opening gig at Bowery Ballroom, is gone. Patrick told me it had taken them an entire rehearsal session to learn one song. At BB you could a) tell the strain and b) see the seams. It was a powerful effort to perform these songs.
You couldn’t see the seams on Saturday night, you couldn’t feel the time pass. None of the songs felt long and nothing felt the slightest indulgent. He mentions opening act lead singer Marissa’s Catholic school Principal is in the audience, nods to his own traditions, introduces “Theme From Cheers’ as an apology to his Mother (unlike “My Time Outside the Womb” I guess -which TA don’t play) and then cracks “Patience is a virtue, so is temperance” before Ramoning the song in a fine interpretation.
Yes guys. Patrick is so central it is easy to miss the rest of the band but the bassist Ian Graetzer (SF’s bassist was pretty good as well) was in extremely fine form. Incidentally, the sound was being mixed by the excellent The Monitor produced Kevin Mcmahon.
Some more thoughts:
1. Couldn’t they do ONE new song??
2. Patricks harmonica on “Titus Andronicus” was incredible and a sure sign as to what has happened to the band. The first time I heard em playing the song was early 2009 and it was a whomping singalong which just powered out the set -a goodie, and the audience had been waiting for it. It was great tonight, the harmonica instead of guitar worked, but it was, an important, but not a most important song. They, and their audience, out of college and on with its life, were passed it a little.
3. NO ENCORE. You read me. God Save Titus Andronicus, that’s what I say.
4. Indeed, Parick counted down the minutes till the end of the show That’s how certain he was he had us, h left the brinkmanship for the songs..
5. I think I wrote this elsewhere but it is worth repeating this show did not sag. No lull. An enormous achievement.
6. And for the last song Titus Andronicus brought out Free Energy to form a supergroup they wittily name Temporary Tattoos and performed a freewheeling cover of AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock And Roll”.
I admit it, I’m a fanboy when it comes to Titus Andronicus. But I am a fanboy who listens to enormous amounts of music. I don’t think the Titus Andronicus set was the greatest they’ve done or the worse, I thought it was a perfectly normal set in the long line of perfect sets this band has performed for months. That’s what it means to be the greatest rock band in the world: it means you can do it on any given day. It is what you do.
On this subject, to paraphrase a quote from The Monitor, I don’t want to think or speak or write with moderation: to love rock is to love Titus Andronicus.
