LIVE: Miike Snow @ The 9:30 Club - 10/24/12

All photos by Joy Asico (joy@chunkyglasses.com / www.asicophoto.com)

Sometimes you walk into a show expecting a pretty great thing, and emerge having experienced something three shades different, but still great - like the band jumped on the tour bus and started swerving, and your expectations went along for the ride. Sweden’s Miike Snow returned to the 9:30 Club on Wednesday night for two shows, six months after an appearance there in April. After hearing reports on that show what one would expect was a sweaty kickassian throw-down. What they brought was part sweaty dance party, part Scandinavian art show, part emo-tinged bare souled confessional that while wholly unanticipated, was great nonetheless.

The band came onstage single file to “Enter the Jokers Lair,” complete with gold masks and black hoodies. The first track on this year’s Happy to You was obviously designed to be the opening song for every show Miike Snow will perform for the next 10 years, much like “Animal” will be the closing encore song. It’s not a thrashy dance track, but more of a chill wave groove thing that takes a while to warm up. When they followed it up with “The Wave,” another mid-tempo grinder, the floor crowd aborted attempts to get a dance pit going and stood relatively still, absorbing the visuals and dazzling lights going off all over the stage with every available smart phone. Or maybe it was just early.

Thankfully Miike Snow took off the masks after one song, let down the hoodies, and just played, but even by “Bavarian #1 (Say You Will),” which was bouncy as all hell, it was still a little sedate in the lower level (not so in the balconies, where hordes of dancing guys showered us below with accidental beer spillage). Mid-set when they got to “Pretender,” the entire club finally erupted into a shaky mass of fist pumping arms and random flailing about, which was what we were all there for in the first place. “Silvia” was just simply stunning, and it turned into a weirdly evocative singalong followed by a lot of jumping around and shouting, but the song is a kaleidoscope of sound and lends itself well to that sort of psychosis. And don’t get me started on “Paddling Out” - my calf muscles are still in recovery.

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LIVE: Ben Kweller @ The 9:30 Club - 10/19/12

All photos by Traci J. Brooks (traci@chunkyglasses.com / info@tracijbrooks.com / www.tracijbrooks.com)

Ben Kweller looks like the kid you’d want to beat up in school - something about the curly mullet or perhaps the jean vest circa 1990 - but would eventually befriend because he’s just so damn cute. Kweller brought his puppy-dog charm and 90’s fashion sense in a solo show to the 9:30 club Friday night, providing enough personality and distortion from his beat-up acoustic guitar to win over even the grumpiest of parents there to chaperone their child’s musical endeavors.

Despite sound issues, Kweller’s opening song sent the bored crowd into cheers as he bounded around the stage, wailing out “Mean To Me.” Barely stopping for breath, he rolled into “Launch Ramp” and “Out The Door.”  Having missed the nation’s capital on his last tour, “I made it a point to play D.C.,” he told the crowd when he finally paused between songs.

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TO DO LIST: Miike Snow TONIGHT @ The 9:30 Club!!!

Rocktober’s been very good to us, so help us usher it out in style, dignity and grace with a special performance by the National Sympho -- Whaaaaaa-huh-huh?  TO HELL WITH THAT - we’re going meteoric from now til Halloween, starting tonight with Miike Snow at the 9:30 Club.  You’ll get a bunch of guys sharing one name, an entrancing idea for a last-minute costume - just add roadkill antlers to that rabbit suit your aunt got you last Christmas - and enough Scandi-pop and synthesizers to fill the couch section of IKEA, all in one sweatastithon of a night. 

Miike Snow uses everything from barking dogs to marching bands to give their tracks a fullness uniquely their own, and they are rolling in tonight for not one, but two shows.  Will they be bringing the Grambling State Marching Band and a pack of wild dingoes?  These Swedes are nuts, so it’s entirely possible -- but even if they can’t swing it due to space limitations and health code regulations for the cupcake kitchen, you can guaran-damn-tee that MS will have enough sound packed into their keyboards to make you think you’re seeing a marching band.  And dingoes.

We’ve already been to, like, 50 shows in 24 days, so step it up with us as we grind out the rest of the month, and let’s see you shaking your sprocket tonight - Tickets for the early show with Nikki & the Dove are sold out (but ever hear of Craigslist?) - luckily for you there are still a few tickets available for the 10:30 show HERE.  

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