Review: Fang Island @ Bowery Ballroom

In fact, since discovering that I fall squarely in the “obsessed with Fang Island” camp, it’s become a bit of a guilty pleasure to read through other people’s comments from when they first get turned on to the band. And not to digress too much, but I’ve been collecting my favorites from around the interwebs:

10) This makes me want to fight a kangaroo. I will fight that mother fucker in his own habitat.

9) My five year old’s top listening request on the way to school. He is obsessed with Daisy, grinning like a fool playing air drums.

8) I feel manipulated. You are not happy until you’ve listened to this.

7) Mosh pits need more hugs.

6) This song is like a 6 minute, slow-motion slam dunk.

5) The guitar parts there fucking awesome, and I love when things are fucking awesome.

4) Sometimes I like to sit at stoplights and sing this. Even if the light is green, I will still sing this.

3) Ironic wankery is the new chillwave. Take it away, blogs!

2) Exactly what Wyld Stallyns would have sounded like if they had been a real band.

1) This song would be playing at the end of the movie of my life, after I killed all the zombies, saved my best friends life and won the heart of the girl of my dreams.

So anyway, on Friday night at the Bowery Ballroom, Fang Island embraced their first real “big venue” headlining gig in New York City by proclaiming repeatedly that “We are here to have fun,” and then later upping the ante by saying “I think this is the most fun we’ve ever had!” The feeling was mutual, because even though the band played a brief single set that didn’t stretch beyond an hour, the place went hysterical. The front half of the floor looked like a giant game of Whack a Mole, as the go-to dance move for a Fang Island is apparently the bounce. It’s not quite mosh pit, not quite dance floor; it’s just repeated jumping accented by fist pumps and number ones.

With regard to the short set, it actually works in their favor, as even though the band has a relatively deep catalog of originals at this point (and has also been known to throw in a cover of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Today or Mariah Carey’s Always Be My Baby), the triple lead guitar attack, instrumental song structures, and “ooh wahh” vocals tend to blur the material into a uniform sound. The instrumentations are complex – particularly in the layering and piecing together of various guitar melodies – but in the end, the songs would get repetitive if the band played much beyond the one hour mark.

Fang Island doesn’t have a bad song, nor do they really have a hit. The first crowd-pleaser on Friday came as an early show Sideswiper, which starts in frenetic proggy metal, but slips into chanting choral harmonies before finally resolving into one of the band’s most triumphant guitar anthems. The self-titled album opening combo of Dream of Dreams and Careful Crossers also bought the place to utter mayhem.

Chompers probably got the most immediate crowd response, which is funny, because this song has never been released in a recorded format, yet Fang Island fans know it from their performance in front of the kindergartners – a popular viral video. Finally, The Illinois and Davey Crockett kept the crowd riled up, pumping their fists, and of course, bouncing.

As this current U.S. tour seemingly has the stars aligned for Fang Island, it will be very interesting to see what happens next for the band. They hit SXSW this week, and have already been spotlighted by NPR as one of the elite bands to seek out. Oddly, Fang Island has been mysteriously missing from the vast majority of festival announcements for this summer, but it’s safe to expect some late additions. Regardless, with a live show that contains nothing even remotely close to a dull moment and a crack shot album in tow, it’s officially fever pitch time for Fang Island.