Ladies and Gentlemen, meet my new favorite band: The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. They're not black (but they do dress in black), they're not rebels, and they're definitely not a motorcycle club. But their name reflects the spirited rock 'n roll they play. I went to see them play in The Showbox and I was blown away.Opening for the BRMC are The Morning After Girls and Elefant. The Morning After Girls, a deceiving name since only one of the members is female, play first. Their music can be described as a combination of seventies folk and hard rock with The Byrds' vocal harmony on top of Velvet Underground's wall of sound. As the second opening act, Elefant plays a more straight forward hard rock with some thumping rhythms from the bass and drums. Both openers were good, but not quite memorable.
Before BRMC takes the stage, I wonder how their set is going to be like. The BRMC are touring to promote their third release, Howl. In their first two records, BRMC were hard rock saviors. They played hard rock in the vein of Velvet Underground and their wall of sound, complete with distortion, reverbs, delays, and overpowering bass lines. With Howl, BRMC were more introspective. They exchanged their hard rock setup for acoustic guitars, slides, harmonicas, and even harmoniums to play old school rock 'n roll and soulful country blues. I honestly don't know if the new songs would have punch performed live.
My worry immaterializes as soon as BRMC takes the stage. Howl has several up-tempo tracks, including the hand-clap anthem "Shuffle Your Feet" and the steel guitar and harmonica heavy "Ain't No Easy Way." Played early, they help raise the audience's excitement. The other songs in the album, while more mellow, are far from boring and, in fact, very soulful. Songs like "Howl," "Devil's Waitin," "Fault Line," "Weight of the World," and "The Line" are played so beautifully. It's a rock show with country-blues songs played with acoustic guitars and harmonicas, but the crowd sure didn't mind.The BRMC also play materials from their previous releases. Since the mellow quota was filled by songs from Howl, BRMC play the fast and furious tracks from their first two albums, BRMC and Take Them On, On Your Own. Tracks like "Whatever Happened to My Rock 'n' Roll," "Spread Your Love," "White Palms," "Stop," and "In Like the Rose" highlighted their signature sound: heart pounding rock 'n' roll with huge bass, distortion, reverbs, and delays. The powerful songs cap off a brilliant and impressive concert by one of the few bands that could proudly call themselves a rock 'n' roll band.
