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By Ted Montuori "We make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves and treachers by spherical predominance..." Edmund, "King Lear". Who the hell would think Shakespeare's 17th century rant against astronomy would have anything to do with The Disasters' last show at Bar One? It does - the band indeed created fools with their heavenly compulsion during their December 26th show. Looking like a gaggle of bankers out on a late dinner break, singer/rhythm guitarist Joe Bravo, lead guitarist Vin Cin, bassist Craig Kiell and drummer Glenn Johnson crammed the house during the first show since winning 92.3 K-Rock's Best Unsigned Band contest last month. The foursome beat about 2,000 bands throughout the city, and judging from the Bar One gig, it was easy to see why. The Disasters are definitely power-pop, but not in the cheesy Third Eye Blind/New Radicals vein. They owe more to Cheap Trick and Jellyfish than Matchbox 20 or Fastball. They play it the way it's supposed to be played - tight and with no pretensions. It will definitely give you an '80s flashback of sorts - not the cheesy one-hit wonder bands whose memories are currently fodder for bad VH-1 documentaires - but it will make you remember a time when bands cared more about solid songwriting than posturing and irony. (Speaking of '80s flashbacks, what was up with that blond with the Doro Pesch 'do who had a pack of Marlboro reds hanging out of her cleavage?!) The Disasters' songs are all polished but bite with a raw energy and heavy chorus like "Dopamine," "Vent" and "Perfect World." In his Fedora and dark suit, Vin looked like Indiana Jones churning out the nasty leads and taking over vocals for a Clash remake of "Pink Cadillac," and Kiell was superb, especially with his sliding bass line for "What About Crimes." There was no getting between him and Gell as far as the rhythm section went - they were as tight as can be. And Joe's belting of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" puts Eric Burdon's down to schlocky shame. While they easily won the crowd over last weekend (two other bands who were supposed to play that night ended up canceling), it's tough to say whether The Dsiasters can make a dent in the biz because their music is just too good to fit the second-rate punk/ska/core or whatever ridiculous hybrid MTV and "modern rock" radio insists on shoving down our throats. That's too bad. Because I don't know about you, but I think it's much easier top believe Joe when sings about "being happy evermore in a perfect world" than it is to believe Rob Thomas when he whines that the real world should just stop hassling him. |
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