But that’s neither here nor there. On a rainy Sunday night in Brooklyn, and the opening Sunday of the NFL season no less, came a sparse crowd that had dwindled to a handful of stalwarts by the time the band exited the stage close to 1 AM. No matter; more room to rock. There were problems – the mix was shaky, with Louis, especially, barely audible for most of the night – and occasionally uneven pacing. But they were super-charged from the get-go: the snarling boogie of Counter Clock World bleeding into extended guitar flights and setting the pace for an affirmative run of songs that stretched some 20 minutes longer than most of the one-set shows the band played this tour.
The highs were a great many: McFadden’s piquant country mandolin lifting the tender White Dirt, the frappe-thick bass-and-drums breakdown in Bouncing Very Well, Joseph pinballing from irascible, grungy blues-rock (Emma’s Pissed) to bittersweet country soul (Vic Chesnutt’s Flirted With You All My Life), the whole band locked and loaded for a hefty Henry segued into Joseph’s should-be-a-classic Light Is Like Water, careening jams and triumphal crowd singalongs and all. Oh, and a cameo: Joseph’s buddy James Patrick Dalton lending some buzzsaw harmonica to an unhinged, near-15 minute Jacob Ladder.
If there’s a hindrance for Stockholm Syndrome, it’s that the songs that come from outside their roster of originals – the Joseph staples like Light, Jacob and Wisconsin Death Trip, the jittery acid-country of McFadden’s Miranda, the Chesnutt cover – often overpower the ones that do. It isn’t weak material by any means, it just still sounds like the catalog of a band that worked up a few solid songs as an excuse to play together: play tight, play loud and play long. They have another album on the way and it stands to reason it’ll be a keeper, but then, you don’t seek out Stockholm Syndrome to find a band with smoothed-out edges. The band always feels temporary, and plays like it’s the last time it’ll ever happen, with blessed abandon.
SET: Counter Clock World > Empire One > Milk, Emma’s Pissed* > That Which Is Coming, White Dirt, Miranda, Henry > Light is Like Water, Flirted With You All My Life, Bouncing Very Well** > Apollo > Drive^
E: The Jacob Ladder#, Wisconsin Death Trip
* with “Rama Sita / Shalom Salam” rap
** with bass and drum solos
^ with band intros and “I’m Workin On It” rap
# with James Patrick Dalton on harmonica
