I saw Wild Nothing opening for someone somewhere a couple of years ago and thought they were boring and I went to see them at CMJ's Union Square ballroom on Friday afternoon and they weren't as boring any more. The reason is, the C86 band now have a damn good drummer in Jeremiah Johnson. With his black rimmed glasses and nerdy disposition he looks like a typical wallflower at the indie dance drummer, till you get to the moustache which walks in beauty like the night, or like a 70s porno star. None of which would matter so much if he wasn't absolutely on the one. You can count the beats, the man is always there, and he can move to the cymbals when the quietly intense band desires it, but when he needs he will thump em with a triplet. And when they get too ponderous, he starts filling in the gaps. Given that we are talking Wild Nothing here, he enlivens them, and if the band doesn't quite react with arms spread out wide, at least lead singer Jack Tatum bends his legs from time to time.
Wild Nothing have played ethereal melodies for college kids who might be stoned or might be smoking tea for three years now, and if the first album is the best, the latest, Nocturne, isn't unconscionable. I got there five minutes early and yet the band were mid-song. except they broke off, "How does that sound?" Jack inquired. In the loose cool CMJ world they were sound checking before the audience!
Once the set got started, it had an easy going, jingle jangle momentum, and the swift 30 minute set, while hardly Killer Mike, had its own inner element. In the middle of the day, Wild Nothing played a pretty, unassuming set with a good back beat, building steadily from standard bearers "Shadow" and "Confirmation" through a passionate "Nocturnal" with an Asian woman standing near the front and singing along merrily. enough to remind us that those kids today love this stuff.
The weather outside was wet and damp and humid, like some 1980s cop movie taking place in a future world Tokyo, but at the Ballroom, the Cutty Shark was being poured and the college kids were tap[ing their toes to the beat. They should have CMJ every day.
Grade: B