I usually don’t write negatively about bands under a certain size but I am going to make an exception in the case of Brooklyn’s My Pet Dragon and I will tell you why: what doesn’t do it for me could make em huge. They have perfected a big rock sound. Me? From Queen to U2 to Arcade Fire, I feel manipulated by big rock sound.
During a buttoned down but fiery 45 minutes of arena rock at the tiny Studio at Webster Hall last night, My Pet Dragon reminded the favourably impressed audience what it means to perform classic rock. Lead singer and guitarist (and songwriter) Todd Michaelsen takes center stage with significant other Indian dancer Reena Shah dancing and banging anything that moves to his left and backed by another guitarist plus rhythm section, My Pet dragonis loud and powerful band.
And it works from the get go on “Domestic Lover” their first song, and the first of many populist, mainstream and overwhelmingly powerful songs.
By the end of most songs tonight the band is jamming together and the songs are so good, so well constructed, they could jam a lot longer than they do, you wish they would cut the number of songs in the set in half and extend the songs length over the less than a minute codas they tend to play.
The current single, “Lover In Hiding” hides in plain sight at the # 3 slot in the set. Makes you wonder why Todd, a centrifugal force, doesn’t sell the band a little more on stage. He doesn’t seduce the fans at all and he should. It is not that he feels uncomfortable quite, and given after the set the band sold their Tees and CDs, it is not that he thinks he is above it. Then what? I don’t think he spoke to Reena once and he kept all remarks to the audience on a fairly perfunctory level. Sell the sizzle, kid.
When the song clicks this didn’t matter as much. When Todd nails it, this is Top Forty rock with all the power a five piece band can give it. “Songbird”, nearing the end, is all that. A great song crashing around Todd’s soaring tenor and Reena’s defensive back up vocals. Four years after My Pet Dragon’s first album they bring the music home in waves of pure rock pleasure.
At Webster Hall I am sold, at Giant’s Stadium but… all bets will be off.