October 10, 2000

Boston Axis

Sneering attitude, sarcasm, sex, drone, cheekbones, psychedelics and a splash of [a]Keith Richards[/a]' blood...

The recipe for a Dandy Warhols show might go something like this: two parts sneering attitude, one part sarcasm, a handful of sex, a thick layer of drone, a splash of Keith Richards' blood, two cheekbones, and a handful of psychedelics. If you light a fire to them, they will definitely go pop; but leave them alone, and they might spend your ticket money on horse tranquillisers and fall asleep in the dressing room listening to your dad's record collection at the wrong speed.

The Dandys' aren't fucking up tonight, though, they are doing something they seem to take pretty seriously: fucking around, and having fun doing it.

During the tongued and cheeky honky-tonk 'Country Leaver' and the mid-Western send-up 'Minnesoter', Courtney Taylor and Zia McCabe grin at each other like gargoyles. Even funnier, though, are back-to-back black-comedy hits 'Not If You Were the Last Junkie On Earth' and 'Bohemian Like You', sending the stocking-hatted, pig-tailed, cool kids into a pogo without any sense of irony.

Everyone and everything is on. Brent DeBoer has either healed from his show-slumping kidney surgery or taken enough pills to kill the pain. The slow building 'Be-In' goes space-out, then rock-out, then full-on air raid (sirens courtesy of Korgstress McCabe). Peter Holmstrom shows copping Stones riffs is not all he can do, getting downright evil while pulling Pete Townshend windmills like a lifer for 'Boys Better'. Taylor even shows off his Lou Reed impression, croaking through 'Godless' with a Stetsoned Troy on an understated but remarkable backing trumpet.

The Dandys still rule, and when the now shirtless Taylor (sorry boys) sings, "Don't have to be fucking brilliant to see, I'm not as smart as I seem to be," for the audience-requested closer 'Genius', you can be sure he's not entirely serious.