Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The Fabulous Downey Brothers

The White Rabbit

07/01/2011
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The rock show can fall into myriad traps... the most common is redundancy.  I don't consider myself a short-attention-span crowd member, but if I'm not absolutely blown away, I tend to give a band two songs: if song 2 is just like song 1, I assume the whole set will be the one thing they're doing, just that one thing, and I'll go get some fresh air.  If a band shows themselves to be varied, I'll stick around just to see what they'll do next.

The Fabulous Downey Brothers excel at both ends of that spectrum: song 1 was nothing like song 2, and I spent the show (the third Downey show I've seen so far, and I don't intend to miss them on their next visit) absolutely blown away.  The music changes quite a bit over the course of a Fabulous Downey Brothers show, as sequencers get plugged into the PA, members change instruments, and band members come off stage for choreographed dance numbers  for specific songs.

I have to mention the music first (which is fun, catchy, and always given to weird shifts you didn't see coming) because, in a blog with pictures and no sound, the spectacle may threaten to overwhelm everything else.  For example: the show began with the pair of lead singers faces obscured by giant, head-covering, blue cupcakes.  The show pre-dates this blog and I only have photos stolen from their Facebook page, or I would provide cupcake headed photos to prove I'm not making this up, but for now, you'll just have to trust me.

I usually appreciate when a band takes the extra step, away from staring at their fretboards in jeans and T-shirts, and makes something of a stage show.  Well... there are stage shows, and then there's the Downeys.  This isn't just costuming: though the band is slathered in electric blue, their stage show involves audience participation, dance numbers, and one particular song when drummer Liam Downey comes forward and has a high energy freak out, stomping in circles and screaming into a mic.

Both in spectacle in sound, they remind me less of the new wave Oingo Boingo and more of that band's previous incarnation: The Mystik Knights of Oingo Boingo.  They Might Be Giants invariably get added to the conversation, too, along with some straight up punk rock, but the band changes sounds and moods enough to defy easy classification. Personally, I'd love to hear them with a horn section, but there's barely room on stage for their current 8-piece incarnation.

Lyrically, they mix high- and low-brow so effortlessly that a songs with farts, pee-pee, and poo-poo are giddy fun instead of puerile, and songs that reference a tertiary Hamlet character aren't pretentious in the least: when they say 'Rosen,' you say 'crantz.'  If you roll your eyes at pee-pee, that song's about the empty space within matter; if you don't know who Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are, the call and response comes with que cards.

The Fabulous Downey Brothers produce something I seldom see at shows-- Joy. There is a jubilant, playful, overwhelmingly fun energy that washes out over the crowd at a Downey show, from jaunty pop songs to dancey sequencers to screaminess, the show tends to have me smiling so consistently and for so long that my face hurts a bit by the time they're done.

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