Thursday night, long time psychedelic/alternative rock darlings, The Dandy Warhols, returned to the Metro, a club they’ve frequented many times over the years. They had big competition with The Rolling Stones playing across town, but that didn’t stop them from nearly filling the club.
The band had an odd setup as lead singer/guitarist, Courtney Taylor-Taylor was positioned next to the drum set and mostly obsucred behind his dual microphone structure. He never emerged out from behind it. On the left side of the stage was keyboardist Zia McCabe and on the right was guitarist Peter Holmstrom. They opened with “Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth” which was a really strong way to start one of their shows. The crowd seemed rather mesmerized the entire show. The band sounded really good and their dreamy psychedelic music was quite hypnotic. Their music was layered and mostly mid-tempo. Some of their songs had some elements of shoegaze, which Taylor-Taylor made mention of between songs. He said they were referred to as shoegaze in an article once, which he found a bit insulting because they don’t stare at their shoes when they play, they are looking down at their guitars! So does this mean that The Dandy Warhols are a handgaze band then instead? Who do we need approval from to make handgaze an official musical genre?!
The band started their tour with this show, and they themselves claimed they are a little rough around the edges and a little rusty, but you’d never have known it with the one exception of when they stopped playing “We Used to Be Friends” mid-song due to being out of sync with each other and took a few minutes to regroup and restart the song. No one minded at all and when they restarted the song it sounded great. The rest of their set went off without a hitch and their 12-song, 90 minute set was incredibly entertaining and featured not only new songs, but some of their most popular songs as well that the people have loved for their now 30 year career. It was a really great way to spend a Thursday night, and you didn’t even have to stay out very late!
