Concert Review: Minus the Bear

Minus the Bear was initially a band I knew little about other than their presence on the indie scene as some vaguely interesting amorphous mass of music.  I downloaded a discography of theirs and synced it to my Zune and promptly forgot about it for about a year.  At some point, I started randomly playing some of their music and while I liked it, I was nowhere near their greatest fan.  They made for very good desert cruising music and that was the extent of my knowledge of the band.  Until one fateful day, after meeting up with Chris and his crew for the first time I crashed at their place after going out and drinking somewhat heavily.  Jimmy had left his music playing during the night, and everything that came on was just wonderful.  A heavy variety of Minus the Bear songs was included in the playlist, and from that night on I made a point to actually sincerely listen to the band.  I became downright addicted to the Highly Refined Pirates album, spinning it endlessly through my Winamp queue to the point where it would have been ruined had it been a cassette.  Thankfully 1s and 0s of digital media don't degrade so my listening experience stayed just as pristine.  Eventually as these things do, my frequency of listening dropped off in favor of other bands to inject a bit of variety, however I had not lost my love of their upbeat and spacey sound or somewhat in-your-face lyrics about drinking and fucking in France or anywhere else one could think of for that matter.  When Jimmy mentioned they were coming to the Marquee here in Tempe, I graciously took in the information and mulled it over for a bit.  I really liked the music, but would the show meet expectations?  I took a gamble and bought a ticket, then pushed the gig out of my mind for the next month and a half.  I spent October doing myriad activities, including taking a trip back to Pennsylvania to watch my friend get married, see Man Man, smoke a hookah for the first time and just participating in general merrymaking.  I also spent a large amount of evenings in October attending shows, the most shows I've ever attended in one month.  Minus the Bear ended up being the last on the docket, but far far from the least (that honor goes to Opeth, as I was expecting to see a metal show and got a prog-rock show).

The show was attended in costume.  I threw on some green facepaint, a bloody painted shirt, and flannel and shuffled my way into the venue after our drive.  Moving Mountains opened the show, and their drummer caused a mighty ruckus.  He looked like Hurley from Lost and was pounding on the skins with a theatrical flare and vigor that easily made him my favorite to watch.  After a brief intermission consisting of pissing and smoking, Minus the Bear took the stage.  Now, although I really like their music, I don't know all the lyrics of all the songs on all the albums as I do with a lot of other bands I love (for example Clutch).  The five man troupe took over the audience's will with the deftness expected of experienced performers.  The crowd immediately came to live and started singing along word for word with front-man Jake Snider.  The band packed in a huge amount of material, many songs I had only heard once or twice, a few I had never heard.  These formed the bread around the meaty core of the music that night, the entirety of the Highly Refined Pirates album.  It was wonderful.  The band sounded excellent and the crowd went wild for each song being played.  I had heard from Jimmy that if the band gets too drunk, they'll fuck up all the time during the show.  Not that night.  I felt they may have been riding the energy of the crowd, for although they were drinking beer the entire show, nobody faltered, as if the crowd's momentum pushed them along through the night.

That night will be memorable for a few reasons, and Minus the Bear is going to be a large part of that memory.  I will not hesitate to buy a ticket next time they are going to be in the Phoenix area.  Now to start tearing through the rest of that neglected discography.