Seattle Subsonic

Handsome Furs Are A Hot Mess

June 7th, 2009

They really killed it Friday night, Handsome Furs. The electro-power-rock couple put on a scintillating set at Neumos that had me and everyone else wishing for more. I’ll get my one complaint out of the way: why the truncated set, Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry? The duo played 10 songs, including two encore cuts, and left out notable Face Control tracks “Thy Will Be Done” (which would’ve amped the joint) and “Officer of Hearts”, not to mention Plague Park‘s most popular song, “What We Had”. Boeckner and his wife, for their part, were practically beaming the entire show, genuinely impressed with the jubilant crowd: “You guys are fucking sweet, man.”

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A word about Feral Children, who’ve recently come out of hibernation to again join up with the local tour circuit with a cluster of new compositions. I’ve seen this band maybe five or six times, raved about it numerously and made no secret of my love for their sole record Second To The Last Frontier. My integrity now accounted for, I just was not feeling the dudes’ new songs. Too much empty falsetto, too little chaos, too many overwrought ballads. Only one of their 8 or 9 songs was from Frontier (“Jaundice Giraffe”). I’ll give them a pass on the set closer, which had their trademark icy synths, bombastic triple drumming, and pervading howls. I would never write them off this early, but I really hope it was just rust.

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Handsome Furs executed their set with an ecstatic zeal, letting their instruments play their bodies. Boeckner with guitar is as berserk and unpredictable as that arched black cat tattooed on his bicep, almost like he’s having to corral it while it sinks its tiny little fangs into his hands. Alexei bounced metronomically at times and chaotically at others, depending on the cleanliness of her beats, all the while making exaggerated, open-mouthed faces. They are clearly having the times of their lives. They ripped through the first half of Face Control, stopping once for Alexei to tell us that Dan spilled beer on her keyboard, possibly inhibiting her parts, and that the straps on her dress had broken (she’d go on to tug at it several times throughout the night). “Evangaline”, a song “about sex” was combined with somebody throwing a pair of panties on stage and Alexei hanging them on Dan’s mic stand. In a semi-hilarious moment later on, Dan would get tangled up in mic stand, cord, guitar, and undies before a crowd member finally helped him undo the mess.

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After “Nyet Spasiba” (Russian for ‘no thank you’), the two combined forces on the keyboards for “Handsome Furs Hate This City”. Dan comically introduced it by saying “This is a song about Puyallup”. It’s always Puyallup. “Radio Kaliningrad”, Face Control‘s best song, closed the pre-encore set and its crackling, modulating synths emulating radio static were on full display. Not to mention the song’s epic New Order-ish cool climax. And if you thought his voice sounded great on record, then you had to have thought it sounded downright divine in person. A herioc blend of Springsteen, Ocasek, and something all his own, his voice carries their songs to uneasy heights.

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They were such a fucking hot mess. Set list after the jump (and I didn’t even have to photograph it; wakka wakka).

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Legal Tender

Talking Hotel Arbat Blues

All We Want, Baby, Is Everything

I’m Confused

Evangeline

Nyet Spasiba

Handsome Furs Hate This City

Radio Kaliningrad

[encore]

Dead + Rural

New one “you may not have heard this one before”