The Evens
Riverside Club, Glasgow - 27th March 2006
The Riverside Club is a Ceildh venue, a wooden-floored dance hall with a very small, very low stage in one corner, with one wall flanked in ceiling-high windows that overlook an appartment complex with a glass elevator gliding up and down every so often. This rather unusual venue, in fact turned out to be perfectly suited to The Evens mellow agit-punk.
The great thing about Ian MacKaye, and projects he is involved in, is the absence of rock and roll ego. MacKaye and Evens partner Amy Farina arrived with the audience, complete with daysacks like they were back from a wander around the city. They went to the bar with everyone else - no band/crowd demarcation here.
If you've ever seen Fugazi live, then you'll have some idea of the way that Ian MacKaye approaches crowd interaction. If not, then you really have missed out. The Evens took the stage, and MacKaye did what friends do with friends - discussed the days events, the news, what's going on. Like he did when Fugazi played Glasgow, he mentioned the lighting, and his desire to keep the crowd lit up so were could all see one another.
The music though? Well, you can't fault it. Played with passion and intensity, more angry in places than their record. MacKaye was suffering from a sore throat and used this as an excuse to encourage the audience to participate in a sing along during "Mount Pleasant Isn't Anymore". Songs were interspersed by moments of band/crowd banter, and one hillarious moment, that could only have happened at this gig, when a member of the audience took the stage to redirect an overhead light so it lit up the crowd, causing MacKaye to quip that this was really all staged and preplanned.
Album greats like "All These Govenors", "Shelter Two" and "Blessed Not Lucky" were given perfect renditions, and some new tracks were given an airing, perhaps an insight into new album material.
They closed with "On The Face Of It" - no encore, no support band. This was stripped down, honest, very political punk rock, played by a band who are surely knocking it down to rebuild it, just as Fugazi did.
Review - Kenny Mooney