Show Review: Divine Fits @ Beerland (8/1)

Supergroup? I guess to many of us, Divine Fits would qualify.

Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade/Handsome Furs, Sam Brown of New Bomb Turks and that one guy in Spoon. To get things going after holing up and recording the pending A Thing Called Divine Fits due 8/28, the band decided to do a home town tour hitting Austin, Montreal and Columbus. Austin got to be first, a sneaky show a Continental Club preceded this one. But this was the first night they officially played a show.

Beerland got to host, The Young got to open.

The Young were happy to be there. They played their jams, cracked some jokes, but they knew what was up. This crowd wanted to hear the new stuff form the new band.

When you have one album, chances are you will empty it on stage. That they did. Like the previous show, there was a cover of Tom Petty‘s “You Got Lucky” and The Wipers “Doomtown”. I wanted to get that out of the way.

On to the good stuff. The singles online so far display a disparity of a Britt song (“Would That Not Be Nice”) versus a Dan song (“My Love Is Real”). You can’t help but hear their respective bands when either is the vocal lead. Where the band really becomes a band is when each member steps out of the comfort of their given knowns. There is a big guitar driven jam that defies Britt’s spartan tendency while thwarting the synth of a Boeckner tune. When they share vocals, you catch the similarity in style that really wouldn’t ever be apparent unless on stage together. I do have concerns for the vocal chords and neck muscles as Dan and Britt try to out-strain each other.

Alex Fischel pours the background glue on each song. Jumping from backing keys to backing vocal to bass to guitar, he is the Swiss Army knife in a band that already changes things up. In fact, Dan and Britt were confused at times as to who goes where with what instrument. Meanwhile, Sam Brown just keeps things tight and on schedule.

Final thought from Dan (paraphrase), “Thanks, that’s all we know.” When talking to the band outside (where there was air), they were excited to be working things out on stage. Just pulling it off was enough, not having to restart a song, hearing people applaud. They are adding dates, stay tuned for your next shot.

I think they just might make it…

One last factoid, Gerard from Matador wrote the band bio. #themoreyouknow

More pics available over at the photo site…