Inside the dark confines of the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor, Michigan on 1/30/16, Protomartyr managed to fight off the sweltering conditions to perform to a full audience packed wall to wall. Opening the night were two local Michigan bands Deadbeat Beat and Rebel Kind. Deadbeat Beat, a three piece garage/pop punk band with simple arrangements, gave a stark contrast of lighthearted punk compared to the Detroit main act. Rebel Kind, performing their brand of psychedelic folk and 50’s era harmonies shifted from experimental numbers to straightforward arrangements. Reasonably underwhelming and lacking huge allure, both groups fell a bit flat performance wise, but it looked as if that didn’t matter to the spectators as they cheered on through all the tracks in spite of long intermissions between acts.
At the stroke of midnight, Protomartyr appeared on stage with Joe Casey wearing his white dress shirt and dress jacket along with a sense of timidity. Opening up with “Cowards Starve” and its ominous tones gave the room a perfect austerity to the previous acts. Casey in absolute focused intensity, that only seemed to grow as the night warred on and pushed the temperature boundaries of the Blind Pig. The band approached without much mixture from their previous material before The Agent Intellect, serving to both its experimental and aggressive nature in boiling conditions to over joy the crowd. They would mix it up on rare occasions, specifically dedicating the “Ypsilanti” track to the aforementioned attendees and city across the way, grabbing it from their least known record and debut No Passion All Technique.
The true resonance of Casey’s performance along with the burgeoning heaviness of the whole affair, the venue gave Protomartyr another level of fervor. Casey on several occasions gestured wildly through his own lyrical devices only reinvigorated the feeling of seeing something moving. The performance of “What The Wall Said,” definitely relayed this whole event to realization that he was giving it his all. Giving a passionate and isolated show on stage, at times screaming away from the mic to help us overcome the consistency of the post-punk feedback barrage they were giving us.
Although the group has the reputation of moody cynicism throughout their material, Casey did enjoy imparting some wisdom about how we’ll all miss Val Kilmer as an actor once he passes. A brief comedic spurt from Casey as the crowd bemoaned at this proclamation his impact would be equal to David Bowie’s with scattered “whoahs and “noooos” moving across the room.
Despite the circumstances and bad ventilation the band were enduring, they surprisingly came out for a two-track encore. Opening with remarks of it being the hottest show they’ve ever performed, they jumped into “Scum, Rise!” and finishing the night with “Come & See.” It was a succinct and tense encore with Casey brooding on by the end: “and I’ll try to live defeated, come and see, the good in everything.”
