The Blood Brothers / Celebration

The Blood Brothers has toured with a number of celebrated acts in recent years, including acts like the critically acclaimed Cursive and ...Trail of Dead, as well as cult phenoms like Against Me!, Glassjaw, AFI, Coheed and Cambria, and even American Nothing (during American Nightmare/Give Up the Ghost's brief clip with that in-between name) at one point. Suffice it to say, the band could often be counted on for a diverse but notable bill. However, they can still be counted on to help out their more obscure friends and place them before crowds that now reach up to a good thousand in some of the Brothers' markets.

Here was one of those tours, where past tourmates the Chinese Stars took to the stage first at Irving Plaza Monday night. At precisely 8:30 they began their set of noisy post-hardcore noticeably in the vein of Q and Not U that I warmed up to after several songs. They borrowed a few of the headliner's tricks: Fugazi-styled guitar playing, a strangely sinister sounding keyboard, and a sexually-driven, flamboyant frontman presence. After all, Eric Paul could be seen suggestively stroking the microphone stand during the second song, suggestively squeezing pockets of air with the tips of his hands' fingers during the third song, and letting the crowd know that one particular number was about losing one's virginity. After a fairly enjoyable 26 minutes, a 20-minute set change was in order.

Judging from the band's name and extremely brief audio I'd heard beforehand, I expected big-band indie with free-spirited 1960s vibes from Celebration. Well, said vibes were certainly there, but I was still well off. By the time the band hit their ninth and last song, I finally realized that the heavy combination of keyboards, drums (2-3 sets were going at all times), and Katrina Ford's sultry but wild voice was conjuring up serious images of defunct Dischord/etc. act and similar sixties soul purveyors Make Up. While it was probably dependent upon the talented and intense percussion work, I was pretty into the 36 minutes Celebration played. The band received some assistance from the Bloods' Morgan Henderson, who stood to the side with maracas and a tambourine for the whole set. Cody Votolato also came out for a couple numbers to lend a hand on the guitar. I believe that last song was called "War," and it appropriately featured an absolutely explosive finish to the set, with a cymbal being crashed into so viciously it toppled over into the crowd. It was a bizarre but enjoyable set, handicapped only slightly by my dumbfounded reaction to some rather active Warped Tour mosh that somehow sparked during one song.

I was expecting the same old spastic, entertaining set from the Blood Brothers I've seen in the past and received that, but with a couple surprises. One of them wasn't so pleasant, though: a really, really intense crowd that barely felt like standing still for even the quieter parts of the band's songs. I let a couple songs pass and then exited the 15-foot section to watch a little more comfortably from the back with a smartly retreated group of friends I'd met up with that night. Additionally, I doubt the Blood Brothers were pandering to the incredible number of mooks in attendance, but nothing prior to Burn, Piano Island, Burn was touched; I suppose that should only come as mildly surprising, though. Lastly, Jordan Blilie has seemed to tone down his stage style a bit; he's more subtle and less menacing, even while screaming his head off, and has seemed to relinquish a bit of the leadership role to Johnny Whitney. Whitney was even more outrageous than usual, flailing and strutting across the stage with an untamed mane of bleached blond hair surrounding his head and neon reflector tape stretched across his torso. When he spit his caterwaul high pitches, you really took notice.

Aside from a very short handful of sour notes, the band was very much together, even while playing the more complicated material off Piano Island they've previously admitted to largely abandoning due to its difficulty in replicating live. The new songs themselves were rather fantastic as expected, and it was nice to see how diverse they sounded even here; the sheer intensity of cuts like "Rat Rider" and "Huge Gold AK-47" just about made up for the lack of tracks off the band's first two full-lengths, but the crowd was definitely responsive to the dynamic numbers like "Love Rhymes with Hideous Car Wreck," "Cecilia and the Silhouette Saloon," and the exploding "Set Fire to the Face on Fire." That and a group of rambunctious males in the back, some shirtless, were sure to jump around to anything. And here I was thinking the band hadn't achieved much success on the FUSE circuit...

Overall, it really was hard to go wrong. Granted there's bias here due to the Blood Brothers being one of this reviewer's favorite bands, but it helps that it's due in part to their cataclysmic live show, which is quite an experience from any vantage point.

Set list (10:21-11:19):

1. Guitarmy
2. Ambulance vs. Ambulance
3. Huge Gold AK-47
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4. Lazer Life
5. Camouflage, Camouflage
6. Set Fire to the Face on Fire
7. Teen Heat
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8. We Ride Skeletal Lightning
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9. You're the Dream Unicorn
10. Rats and Rats and Rats for Candy
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11. Lift the Veil, Kiss the Tank
12. Vital Beach
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13. Love Rhymes with Hideous Car Wreck
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14. Giant Swan [last guitar note looped, during which the band walked off stage and came back on]
15. Rat Rider
16. Cecilia and the Silhouette Saloon