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| Photo by Vincent Cornelli via BrooklynVegan |
It's a rare thing when divorced parents get back together. Once upon a time, it was just as rare for a band to do the same but now it seems like many are making up and taking their show on the road once again.
In 2006, Death from Above 1979 left fans grieving the loss of the powerhouse duo and the missed chance to dance and mosh in the name of sexy music. A reunion and tour announcement earlier this year gave us new hope. DFA 1979 lovers, experienced or virgin, like us, were vowing not to miss them -- no matter what. Snail got her chance first at Sasquatch! Morrissey and I got tickets to their NYC show. Our date, the hottest day of a three-day heatwave, came with a high risk factor but it couldn't stop us, we rode that shit all the way to Williamsburg Waterfront.
After a sweaty bus ride that brought me back to packed and swamp-assed bus rides in the third world tropics and cool redemption at Wild Ginger for dinner, we arrived to The Drums' pleasant indie pop ditties and found a nice spot near the stage. Sweaty and gross again, I tried to fight the urge to sway to their sweet beat as to not provoke my sweat glands further. Even though I was only familiar with "Best Friend" from their self-titled, I liked all of it, especially the new songs from Portamento, and a few sways escaped me anyway.
The sun had lost some power by their end but it was still too hot most people stood as far from each other as possible, reserving whatever time they had in anticipation for the potential body heat massacre that was to be during DFA's set.
People slowly began to migrate closer the the stage as Fugazi, AC/DC and At the Drive-In blared through the speakers. A mini-sing-along broke out during ATDI's "One Arm Scissor" bouts where we stood and that made me happy. The headliner's banner soon fell, an amazing piece of black and white art featuring the guys' elephant-trunked zombified alter egos creeping up from behind their gravestone, engraved "DFA 1979 2001-2006," and everyone screamed. This was not a hallucinatory side effect of heatstroke, our boys were back from the dead.
All anxiousness from waiting abated, excitement and cheers reigned as Jesse F. Keeler and Sebastien Grainger hit the stage in ebony and ivory respectively, Sebby sporting a weird but ultimately very becoming bleach blonde moptop. We danced and thrashed -- some physically, others mentally -- and swooned over the Canadian hotnesses during our beloved songs, mostly from their Heads Up EP and album You're a Woman I'm a Machine. During the breaks, Sebastien asked if we were okay and riffed, telling joke after joke like a rookie comedian at his first open mic. He was hilarious, as usual.
The heat was definitely affecting the level of crazy among the masses. We came into this mostly fearing that we were going to be eaten alive by a moshing mob but though a decent mosh pit got started, people seemed to care more about making through the show than risking their lives going hard in the pit. It was so hot, many guys and gals either walked out of it or reserved their cr00sh moments of their favorite jams.
After the end of the set, we cheered the men back on to the stage for an a two-song encore, apparently Sebastien didn't think we were going hard enough. “Mom and Dad get back together and that’s all you got?” he said and garnered our best roar -- or rather the best we could do as sunbeaten as we were -- and played us out with personal faves "Losing Friends" and "If We Don't Make It We'll Fake It."
As we walked out into the streets of North Brooklyn, we could hear people crossing this event off their bucket lists through the massive exodus. We hope Mom and Dad continue to ride the ecstasy of their make up sex well into their ancient years but if that's not the case at least we got to experience their legend first hand, at least once.
For setlist and more pics check out BrooklynVegan
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