On October 20th, Johnny, Jshay and I went to see the "Extra Lens" at the Rock and Roll Hotel. Before the show, I offered to write the review of this show. Here we are in January of a new year and I am finally fulfilling my duties. Anyway, to more important things: the band and the show.
Bruno and Darnielle: The Extra Lens is a two-man band consisting of Franklin Bruno and John Darnielle. Bruno is the frontman of Nothing Painted Blue and a visiting professor of philosophy at Bard. John Darnielle is the voice of The Mountain Goats and the author of "Black Sabbath: Master of Reality" in which a 15-year boy in a psychiatric center explains how Black Sabbath acts as a special agent to alien races, explaining to them his society and culture. Oh, and Darnielle’s also a vegan. So yeah, I understood why Johnny bet me that more than half the people in the crowd at this show would be wearing glasses.
But hey, I wear glasses and John Darnielle is the man. I discovered him and The Mountain Goats a couple years ago and got hooked on their albums “All Hail West Texas” and “The Sunset Tree”. Darnielle’s lyrics are brilliant and he has a voice you’ll learn to love if you give it time (just like Craig Finn of the Hold Steady). I saw the Mountain Goats at the 9:30 club a year ago and was really surprised at how good of a live show they put on. For such a cerebral band, they had the venue electrified with songs like “This Year” and “No Children”.
The Band: Darnielle is a self-proclaimed bad guitar player so he decided to hook up with Bruno, who plays guitar and piano, to record a couple of albums. The first album was recorded under the name the Extra Glenns and the best songs (in my opinion) are “Going to Marrakesh”, “Baltimore” and “Memories”. The second album, which came out just as we saw them in concert, saw them change their name to the Extra Lens. My favorites from this album were “Cruiserweights” and “How I Left the Ministry”.
The Show: I was pumped to see John Darnielle at such a small venue after last seeing him at the 9:30 club. We got to the Rock and Roll Hotel about 20 minutes before the music began, and we took in the crowd. Fewer four-eyes than Johnny predicted. It was my first time at the Rock and Roll Hotel and I liked it. Pretty basic setup, seemed to be about twice the size of the black cat back room where we saw the Henry Clay People.
John Vanderslice opened the show solo.
I had heard Vanderslice through the NPR Tiny Desk Concert series and enjoyed him with his band. His solo act was underwhelming; but it was a tough spot for him, playing solo in a big crowd of anxious Mountain Goats fans. However, I think Vanderslice, who produced several Mountain Goats albums, was just helping out Bruno and Darnielle on their short tour. He would later come out and play guitar and piano briefly for the main act.
After Vanderslice, Bruno and Darnielle took the stage.
They were rusty, not having played together in a long time. On several occasions, Darnielle was playing the wrong chords and had to be corrected. His energy more than made up for his mistakes. Darnielle is fascinating to watch up close, and you can’t really look away. Dressed in all black, frantically playing guitar, he belts out lyrics like:
the day of reckoning is coming
faster than anyone here realizes
and our love is like jesus, but worse.
even though you seal the cave up
where you've lain its body,
it rises! it rises!
Bruno and Darnielle ripped through most of the songs from their two albums. Some members of the crowd yelled at Darnielle to play the Mountain Goats, to which he said “sorry, that’s a different band”. But it wasn’t really. Just as Darnielle is the Mountain Goats, he was the Extra Lens. And most of the songs that we heard at the Rock and Roll Hotel might as well have been on a Mountain Goats album. The real departure for Darnielle was the last song they played, “Memories”, off their first album. The song had Bruno playing piano and Darnielle singing about his failed attempts at seducing a woman. During the song, Darnielle grabbed a camera from a girl in the audience and took over as her videographer.
Thankfully, she posted it on youtube.
All in all, we had a really good time at the show. Any time you get the chance to see a band led by John Darnielle in concert, I highly recommend it.
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