“Have you seen the Growlers before?”
“I wanted to at Sasquatch, but I was too fucked up.”
This is the conversation I witnessed at least twice last night before The Growlers show at WOW Hall, which was packed with Sasquatch attendees, college radio DJs, post-Bid day sorority girls and dozens of other 18-22 year-olds. I didn’t catch the opener, Canadian-based twin duo,The Garden- but they did periodically take stage dives during the second-half of The Growlers’ set. By 9 p.m., the venue and bar were packed with eagerly awaiting fans, many of whom were having the above conversation.
At 9:30p.m., a man in a dress, bouffant wig, smeared lipstick and eyeshadow strutted onto the stage. With the druggy disco stage name of DMTina, this entertainer described herself as “Half beauty and half beast.” DMTina is a hard-rocking train wreck on heels. Her Facebook fan page has 90 likes as of now, a number I do not think will increase soon. DMTina opened her mini-set with the iconic line of Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy,” or more famously Moulin Rouge– “the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” She continued to sing over several songs, play air guitar, do a slip-n-slide style stage jump and crowd surf.
After about 15 minutes, DMTina welcomed The Growlers to the stage, who excitedly greeted Eugene by telling us that the last time they were here, they played for 10 people. The lead singer Brooks Nielsen (who is apparently a “hottie”), took a good hour to seem anything past comfortable in front of an audience. He tended to stick to the tried-and-true palm on stomach, microphone in hand singing position and only spoke to the audience to occasionally announce the next song. Bass player and guitarists Anthony Braun Perry, Matt Taylor and Kyle Straka stuck to a neutral, “chill” facial expressions, drank Session beers and played their instruments with zero to little audience interaction. The lack of performance isn’t saying that the band wasn’t good- they delivered a chill, psychedelic garage rock show that had you slowly swaying at times and head-thrashing at others.
If you were “too fucked up at Sasquatch,” I don’t think you missed out on a stellar performance. But it was undoubtedly one of the most fun ways to spend Tuesday night of Week 3 (except for Taco Tuesday, shoutout to Agate Alley). The downstairs bar was packed, at least seven people crowd-surfed, dozens of bodies touched in the mosh pit (including the girl with green hair who I saw outside of PLC on Monday), and a cloud of cigarette smoke and taxi exhaust took everyone home to finish homework.