Fresh Music Lounge

Bumbershoot: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

photo by Chona Kasinger

The core BRMC trio (Peter Hayes, Robert Been, and Nick Jago) performed today before a jam-packed Music Lounge as one of the weekend’s most anticipated bands. Consistent with the maturity, emotion, and get-back-to-rock-and-roll mentality of the band’s latest album, Baby 81, BRMC played a completely acoustic set with all the energy of an electric assault. Opening the performance solo, Hayes commanded the stage as usual on Fault Line before being joined by drummer Nick Jago on tambourine for a rousing version of Ain’t No Easy Way. Robert Been then entered the fray, immediately commanding the audience with his plaintively nasal (i.e. Dylan-esque) vocals on Mercy, from the Filter Magazine/Urban Outfitters 2005 compilation benefiting victims of Hurricane Katrina, a song that the band has admitted before they wish they had included on Howl, released earlier that year. (It did, though, end up on the Howl Sessions digital EP.) Before a barely-contained audience, BRMC muscled through Shuffle Your Feet and Love Burns, one of the many singles from the band’s self-titled debut. Jago, normally the band’s drummer, made his debut on guitar for the band’s final track, and most recent single, Weapon of Choice, and as Hayes says, he’s “hidden his gifts well.” Due to time constraints, the show had to end there, but for most fans, it was a fully satisfying half-hour. Despite the protests for more, there was nothing at all to complain about.

Over the next two months, the band makes its way down the West Coast and throughout the country, eventually embarking on a European tour in November. It’s an ambitious schedule with over 40 U.S. stops! Check out when they’ll be near you on their MySpace page. As everyone in attendance today can attest, it’s an act not to be missed.

To listen to their performance on our Streaming Archive, available for two weeks after the performance, click here.

This post mirrored from the KEXP Blog.

posted September 03 '07 at 12:32PM by Shaun in black rebel motorcycle club, kexp, music, music lounge

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