The Wake

What is it about First Ave that makes a group of 400+ dance the “Nelly” to a Talking Heads cover tune? The mother f*cking Faint, that is what! Opening the show on the evening of October 5th with a cut from their new album, “Wet From Birth,” the five-piece from Omaha, Nebraska rocked the hell out of the dance floor for a steady hour. The crowd’s enthusiasm proved an hour to be on the conservative side: but still only one encore.

Opening the show, however, was the surprisingly good Beep Beep who blended painfully belched vocals with melodic guitar riffs and precise drumming. These guys are fresh and amazing; they should definitely be monitored in the future. So, audibly Beep Beep is fantastic, and in their performance the visual highlight, coming at several intervals, was when the lead vocalist/guitarist fought off what appeared to be epileptic seizures by sputtering around and licking the microphone. Also added to the roster at the last minute was The Fever, who got people moving a bit more than Beep Beep, but did not really provide anything “new.” Don’t get me wrong — they are doing an old thing very, very well — but when one opens for a band like The Faint ingenuity is a must.

Truly pulling from their entire discography for this show, The Faint dealt song after song to an all-too-eager crowd. At times, almost ridiculously, there were mosh pits but for the most part the crowd responded with dancing and light shoving. It was clear, too, that fashion was on the agenda of many a concert-goer — poorly pulled off 80s retro gear, plenty of that. But a lot of good stuff too, as to be expected from the fans of a band described as playing “angry 80s dance-pop with a hint of metal, a dash of chaos.”

The Faint’s front man did very little talking and kept to the rocking, addressing the audience only a few times to say that the video was busted. What video you ask? The post-modern tripped out video montages backing the stage, which acted as intense visual articulations of the music’s complex emotional undertones. This visual element was pulled off very successfully when it worked, which was about 90 percent of the show. For example, “Agenda Suicide,” a song about Capitalism’s quest to make us drones, video screens flashed stock images of the “American working man” coupled with images of strange animals and flashing colors. The Faint goes beyond making rock that one can dance to, they address key social and political concerns without all the cliché bullshit of most recent pop-groups-gone-political. The video for the song “Erection” showed phallic symbol after phallic symbol in the form of American landmarks (Washington Monument, World Trade Towers) and U.S. missiles. Risky.

Overall: The Faint equates a mighty and dramatic swoon. I am in love.