So that’s why selling out sucks.
For months now I’ve been puzzled over why people are so riled up about Modest Mouse’s newfound success. I even wrote a column about it. But now I think I understand. It’s the live show. It’s standing in a venue with hundreds of people who don’t know anything more than the few songs they’ve heard off the band’s latest album. Such was the case Wednesday night, when Modest Mouse tried and failed to put on a good concert.
The tension in the Pageant was palpable from the get-go, when the familiar guitar chords to “Third Planet,” the immaculate first track from 2000’s “The Moon and Antarctica,” began the show. “Your heart, felt good / It was drippin’ pitch and made of wood,” sang Isaac Brock, but the crowd just scratched their heads. Luckily, “Float On” was there as the second song to bail the band out; as the audience chanted along to the familiar refrain “All right, already, we’ll all float on okay,” the excitement seemed to be building. Unfortunately, Modest Mouse had all but used up their resources at that point.
For example, no one was prepared for “Doin’ the Cockroach,” a jittery little slice of weirdness from 1997’s “The Lonesome, Crowded West.” Of course, the band didn’t help matters much, either. Aside from sporadic impassioned outbursts by Brock, the band members seemed reticent and unenthusiastic. And there was absolutely no interplay between the group and the audience, other than an obligatory “How you doin’ tonight?”
The band’s playing was at least serviceable, and they successfully brought their unique instrumentation to the stage with a string of songs featuring banjo, stand-up bass, and pump organ. The highlight of these was “Wild Packs of Family Dogs,” but the crowd’s unfamiliarity and the slow nature of the song brought the energy level down considerably, and it only occasionally fluttered up afterwards.
The latter half of the show contained several other old classics, such as “Cowboy Dan,” with its exclamation of “God, if I have to die, you will have to die!” As usual, the high schoolers were at a loss. Fortunately, “The Ocean Breathes Salty” saved the day, but the live version was weaker and less anthemic than the original. And “The Devil’s Workday” was just a mess, a sloppy, meandering electric version that was unidentifiable until the chorus kicked in.
The band left the stage amidst a cacophony of feedback, but returned for versions of “The World at Large” and a campfire version of “The Good Times Are Killing Me.” The crowd sauntered out not knowing what to think. “They’ve got to understand that you have to play what people know,” said one slightly disgruntled patron. Maybe next time, it’s the audience who should do its research. Modest Mouse have over a decade of great songs under their belts, and they’re not out to please anyone’s Top 40 needs. Chalk it up to rock snobbery, but the show was just plain bad. “The good times are killing me” indeed.