Saturday night was the second of three nights of The Blood Brothers headlining Thalia Hall for their sold out reunion tour. The band had quite a following in the early to mid 2000’s before breaking up in 2007 and aside from a brief reunion for acouple of festival dates ten years ago, the band had not been active or played together since 2007. The garnered a cult following fairly quickly back in their time together, and put out a few really great and unique albums. Their live shows were energetic and bombastic and they’d work the audience and themselves into a frenzy with their amazing live performances. Their star shined really bright and burned out within a decade and they were sorely missed.
There’s a handful of pretty special bands that after their breakup continue to grow a following that ends up completely eclipses any popularity they had while still active. Bands like The Misfits and Jawbreaker continued to become these legendary bands that picked up countless new fans to the point that the legend made them larger than life and the idea of seeing those bands again someday was something that tons of their posthumous fans dreamed and fantasized about, hoping that some day their dreams would come true and they’d get to see this band they missed out on, or in the case of the fans that were there, take a trip down memory lane and get another chance to see such a beloved and special band.
This year, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the album Crimes, fans of The Blood Brothers both new and old had their dream come true as the band embarked on a reunion tour that hit a lot of major markets in the U.S. The shows were pretty much instant sellouts and the were at venues far larger than the band was playing 20 years ago. The tour was ending with an unprecedented three nights here in Chicago at the beautiful Thalia Hall.
People were so excited that they were lineup up outside the club in the freezing cold well before the doors opened Saturday night. You could see the excitement on people’s faces all around the venue. The line for merch before and during the opening band’s set spilled halfway into the main floor. New fans were talking about how they can’t believe they are going to see this band play, and old fans were reminiscing about the shows they attended 20 years ago, and just like 20 years ago, I was the oldest person in the room! Appearently, the age of new Blood Brothers fans trended downward and not upward, but that just meant less competition for the spots in the back and upstairs.
First up was Meth. Hailing from Chicago, Meth puts a different spin on heavy music by mixing drone elements with relentless pounding, heavy riffs, and screaming, anguished vocals. Imagine mixing the Swans with early screamo bands (the real screamo, not that warped tour bullshit) and you have an idea of what these guys sounded like. They were intense and really good. They played a punishing 45 minute set and the whole thing was excellent.
You should have heard the roar of excitement when the lights dimmed and The Blood Brothers took the stage! What followed was something pretty unbelievable. When the band took the stage, it was like we were warped back to 2005. First off, these guys, all in their early 40s now, looked nearly the same as they did in their early 20’s. It’s like they stepped out of a time machine to come play a show. Not only that but they all had the exact same amount of energy that they did 20 years ago! It took about 45 seconds from the start of “Set Fire to the Face On Fire” for singer Johnny Whitney to hop off the stage onto the big subwoofer box inside the barricade and get into the crowd to start singing right up in their faces. He was fearless in his getting right in there, or climbing right on top of them and crowd surfing them, all while never missing his vocal parts! Johnny’s vocal tag team partner, Jordan Billie, was all over the stage rarely holding still as he performed his vocal parts as well, and would occasionally hop down there as well to join in on the fun. The crowd lost their minds and most of the main floor was in constant motion and tons of fans were crowding up front to get as close to the two singers and sing along with them as possible.
The musicians on stage flawlessly delivered on every song of The Blood Brothers really unique style of post-hardcore. On the surface if you’ve never listened to them before you may think it’s just a bunch of screaming with some occasional crooning, but there’s a lot going on in those songs with their unique structures and various experimentation with the instruments. The way the band blends heavy riffs and fast tempos with keyboards, piano, and other atypical instrumentation and effects is like no other, and that is what really made this band so special.
The energy level never waned in the band’s entire performance. The setlist was pretty heavy on their two best albums, Burn, Piano Island, Burn and Crimes, both which were recently reissued. Notable highlights included “Trash Flavored Trash”, “Peacock Skeleton with Crooked Feathers”, the melodic and beautiful, “Crimes” (my personal favorite), “We Ride Skeletal Lighting” and the main set closer, “Cecilia and the Silouhette Saloon”. It was as perfect of a setlist as you could get for one that sadly omitted “The Salesman Denver Max”, and the performance was on par, if not better, than any Blood Brothers show from their initial run. It was quite obvious the band really loved being back together on stage and performing those songs again and seemed genuinely moved by the amount of love they felt from the audience, something they made a point to express their gratitude for throughout the evening.
The band returned for a blistering four song encore that started with “Guitarmy” going straight into “Fucking’s Greatest Hits” and concluded with the most appropriate show ender, “The Shame” which was the track that concludes Burn ,Piano Island, Burn. All in the band played around 90 minutes and played 23 songs! It was something really special that exceeded all expectations!
