Death From Above 1979 at Metro

Two Canadians with thick mustaches, a transparent bass taking nose dives, lights assuming three dimensional shapes, mosh pits forming and dissipating, but the dancing continued.

I arrived at Metro with my sister. I wore a pink Dickies shirt to match the color of the most iconic Death from Above 1979 album, and a leather jacket tied to my waist. Nathan and Destiny showed up shortly after. As Nathan predicted, we were the youngest ones there. Most of the crowd was 30s-40s, though I’m sure there were a few in their twenties besides ourselves.

Metro looks like a converted movie theater (but it isn't), smaller than I imagined, with an carved and thickly painted wood frame up and over the stage, a balcony curving along the rear wall of the main venue area. There was plenty of space to breathe when the opener began.

Teenage Mortgage was a most fitting style of music to open for Death From Above 1979. Consisting only of a guitarist/singer and a drummer, the bass likely a prerecorded track most closely following the guitar, which produced feedback and nice high notes across their set. Sweat shined on the singers face, his accent was incomprehensible, the music straightforward and professional.

An extended break for the headliner. At last the lights dimmed.

Death From Above 1979 played their debut album, You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine, in full. The curtain of the backstage was the logo of both members with elephant curled trunks instead of noses, in white outline, over black. The bassist wore black and the singer/drummer wore a white shirt tucked into light blue flannel pants. A keyboard was used at times instead of bass, and DFA1979 was supported by backing tracks where two men couldn’t fill in every part of the song.

On the album’s second track, “Romantic Rights,” which opens with the scratching of the bass strings on a glass bodied bass; the crowd started jumping and a mosh pit opened up. With my former mosh pit practice at Riot Fest, I threw myself in. The mosh pits were comparably mild. With an easily chantable chorus of, “I don’t need you, I want you,” who wouldn't go crazy? The phrase to me before seemed like a paradox but it made sense suddenly, you had to be there and be me.

Death From Above 1979 brought post-punk dance grooves down on the house. Hooks like “Blood on Our Hands” and “Black History Month,” with transcendent bass lines that at times sound like guitar and daring slides on the fret board by Jesse F. Keeler, the smooth voice of and steady drumbeat of Sebastien Grainger, made a slick, expert performance. 

The pivoting spotlights and rhythm and hooks of DFA1979 show were the perfect set up for dancing. I am not as familiar with their songs as my sister, still it was one of my best concert experiences. I spent most of the set, when not jumping, swaying with my eyes closed and letting the music carry me. Though I lost stamina toward the end, the additional songs they played guaranteed grooves and the incentive to keep dancing.

Sebastien Grainger explained that their last track was written over a can of soup under contract with the label to satisfy the necessary 35 minute mark so that You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine, could be, legally, considered a full-length LP. And then they played the end of the album. With the album played through, DFA1979 played other tracks off other albums.

Toward the end of the set, a guest singer came on wearing a Local H shirt with the sleeves cut and shouted punk vocals into the mic, though I admit I didn’t know the song nor the man. The crowd, obviously, went into mosh mode.

When the mustached musicians left the stage, I didn’t feel satisfied. They didn’t say it was over. In minutes they returned, and citing the Chicago curfew, stated they’d play one last song, offering an option between one song and a “Halloween song.” The crowd demanded the “Halloween song,” which at first I wasn’t sure was going to be a cover or what, but it was indeed the classic bass-sending “Right On Frankenstein!” which sent the crowd singing, "I don't wanna die, but I wanna be buried / Meet me at the gates of the cemetery," jumping and moshing across the floor which I thought might give way when masses of people stomped their feet in demand of the encore. It was like the floor opened up, there was room for anyone to leap into each other or brush up against someone near you or only jump.

I waited in anticipation of my favorite Death From Above 1979 song segment, one of my favorite basslines ever created–the outro, holy, ascending bass line of “Right On, Frankenstein!" The bassist was obscured by smoke, but that didn't touch the quality of the line in the slightest. It sent me, and with the final vocals, a last mosh pit broke out. No better way to close a show. I'll remember it dearly for various sentimental reasons.