“Can the rest of my band please come to the stage?”About to kick off the last show of a whirlwind, year-long international tour at Brooklyn’s Market Hotel on March 23rd, Shame frontman Charlie Steen sounded just a little exasperated as he waited for his bandmates to work their way through the packed crowd to meet him. For the audience, though, the scene was of a piece with who this band appears to be; crackling with electricity but with just the right ramshackle unprofessionalism to keep the crowd on their toes, and as soon as the quintet made it onstage and got things started, the crowd wasn’t so much on their toes as they were off their feet.
With opener “Dust on Trial” the British post-punk outfit ignited Brooklyn’s Market Hotel with a wall of ferocious noise, a mosh pit formed near the front as supercharged guitar lines and crushing drums sent the song accelerating full-speed ahead and Steen took charge like a man possessed. Calling to mind Jim Morrison at his wildest, and without the pretension, Steen is the kind of magnetic presence on stage that makes you realize what so many great rock bands today are lacking. Mic stand slung over his shoulders, he would gaze at the crowd with a playful menace, egging them on to go harder, while the rest of the band roared around him. Then he’d add his voice to the mix, growling through “The Lick” with a sarcastic sneer or unleashing his shredded punk shout on “Concrete” and “Gold Hole,” and before you knew it he’d be standing shirtless atop the crowd, the hands of the faithful holding him up.
Shame barreled through their set like a wrecking ball, demolishing every song off of Songs of Praise, the stunning debut they released in January, like it was the last show they’d play. They trade in a style of music that is meant to be heard, and more importantly meant to be felt, live, and as great as the band sounds on record they were downright pulverizing under the low ceilings and dim lights of Market Hotel. Watching bassist Josh Finerty thrash about the stage, drenched in sweat and playing so hard he broke a string, and hearing the room reverberate as “Angie” built from gravely snarl into a soaring conclusion more reminiscent of My Morning Jacket than The Fall, and feeling the anticipation of the crowd build and then explode as “Tasteless” reached its frenzied sing-along refrain could only bring their music to new heights.
It’s far too easy and common to throw around phrases like “the saviors of rock music” as if “rock music” isn’t still shape-shifting, advancing, and surviving, but there’s no denying that, right now, Shame are exciting in a way few of their peers are. What they’re doing isn’t revolutionary and they aren’t trying to change the world (“This is entertainment. We want you to have fun,” Steen proclaimed at one point), yet they manage to inject a singular dose of anarchic fire and do it exceptionally well. In a performance that lasted less than 45 minutes, Shame laid out everything they are and hinted at what kind of force they could become. We should only hope it’s not too long before they return to our shores.
