Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
5/24/07
The Vic Theater in Chicago
I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of BRMC, though I’m not exactly sure why. I think I always veered away a bit because they wear their influences so heavy on their long black sleeves or maybe it just seemed to be missing that feminine element of grace. Because of that, I wasn’t planning on even going to the show until Radio Free Chicago came up with two plus ones and an extra photopass on Thursday. But I was pleasantly surprised and a little awed because BRMC put on a really great show especially when they were rocking out. They played singles and deep cuts and the sound was both powerful and extremely loud. (If you go see them play live, make sure you wear your earplugs or your ears will be ringing forever!)
What I felt was created amongst the immense energy of sound that rolled off the stage ready to collapse on top of all who were willingly waiting was a sense of the dark lost rock of the postmodern age. There’s also a certain collective conscious experience that occurs at these bigger shows when everyone is feeling the same…just sensing those soundwaves coarse throughout your body like vibrations through a bloodstream.
Overall, their set was long (they played a good 90 minutes until the city curfew began officially for minors) and engaging and I would recommend seeing them to even the casual listener because I think the power behind those songs is brought out a bit more live. The one criticism I would have is that the ending portion was too ballad heavy and they should have mixed these softer more sensitive tunes with the other songs that rocked out a bit more. Still, for people looking to wind down after the full throttle force of those riffs, this was the best way to do so.