Missed local noiseniks Mountain Movers doing the opening for this one. Xiu Xiu is a trio that specializes in noise, industrial, angst ridden post punk. Jamie Stewart on guitar, percussion and vocals with Angela Seo on keys, percussion and vocals and Dave Kendrick on drums. Let’s start with Kendrick, pale and lanky, his brightly patterned shirt matched his ferocity on the drums. Seo was inked and sculpted, her tank top emblazoned with “cease fire” which ,while topical was ironic given the aural assault unleashed by her playing. Stewart was fascinating to watch, his manic yelps could sound like Chris Isaak being tortured or some Pere Ubu or Devo-esque basement rager. Between songs he went to a Nalgene and gargled with some tan liquid as if to congratulate or motivate his vocal chords. They each had a cymbal, which when maniacally struck by all had a cartoony vibe. One song had Seo singing “it won’t be” over and over which pulsed into this rhythmic mush. It seemed that Stewart inhabited multiple personalities on stage. One sequence had him prattling like a petulant teen and then moving to an operatic bombast. This band is experimental, their catalog includes renderings of the Twin Peaks reboot and I did locate Laura’s Theme at one point. Let’s face it, this crew should be playing at the surreal bar in TP. Their recent release has ten songs about tragedy with five about people they know, and five imaginary songs, an attempt to process grief. Between songs, the crowd was deathly quiet except for one free-birding wingnut who was quickly shushed by the hipster majority. Stewart gets on the mic and urges the crowd to “be nice, and respect the opinions of others”. Kind of telling that he stuck up for the outsider, he has spent his life as the outsider. These three were definitely on the spectrum, in a good way. After the encore, Stewart waved to the crowd like a third grader out the back window of the bus, sweet.
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