Eight years is a long time. That’s two whole presidential terms. Or a lengthy jail sentence. Or the shelf life of a Twinkie. But unlike that Twinkie, treat most things change over a period of eight years, especially when it comes to music. In today’s Spotify-ed world, a band can be hot for a few minutes and then fall into obscurity by the time the next round of albums goes up for streaming on Pitchfork.
Why is eight years important here? That’s the break Chicago punk trio The Lawrence Arms, took between releasing their last two full lengths. 2006’s Oh! Calcutta! was a landmark statement for the band, perfectly melding melody, aggression, and snide lyrical jabs with the raspy dual vocals of bassist Brendan Kelly and guitarist Chris McCaughan.
The recently released Metropole sounds more “mature”, especially in the lyrical sense. And it should, considering the band members are now grown adults with families and kids and real responsibilities—like keeping up a blog called Bad Sandwich Chronicles.
Going into their headlining gig at the Sinclair on Monday, there were a lot of big questions to be answered. One of them was “what was the Sinclair when Oh! Calcutta! Was released? (Answer: it was a restaurant called Phat Boys, and they served very large portions according to Yelp.)
Other pressing questions were: Does anyone still care about the Lawrence Arms? Will anyone show up to watch them play? Will they look old? Did they get fat? Will Brendan Kelly be as drunk as he was every other time I’ve seen him?
The answer to all of those questions was unequivocally “yes.” Well, actually, it was just “yes” to the “are they still relevant” and “are they still drunk” questions – they didn’t look old or fat.
The show was just about sold out, and the crowd was very into it – singing along to not only the old favorites, but all of the songs the band debuted from Metropole, including an especially stirring rendition of “Beautiful Things”.
Throughout the set, the band sounded great, especially when Kelly and McCaughan were trading vocal parts. In between songs, however, it was clear that Kelly was quite drunk. Some of his between song banter was hilarious, and some of it came across as slurred mumbo-jumbo. His best quote of the night came right before the band kicked off their encore: “This part of the set is like when your buddy’s annoying girlfriend who giggles too much goes home and you pull out the box of real drugs”.
The best part about the show, however, wasn’t the banter, how the band sounded, or even the set list, which was an almost perfect mix of favorites, rarities, and new tracks. Instead, it was the fact that this type of show could even happen after such a long break.
One of the best things about the punk community is that the fans are extremely loyal. When a band puts out a string of great records, the fans stick around for a long time. They might move on to something new, but they’ll always come back to the old favorites, even after eight years.
It’s this kind of loyalty that allowed the Lawrence Arms to release their best work on Metropole and not rush something out just to stay top of mind. It also has allowed them to age gracefully, knowing they can mature their sound without fear of alienating listeners because they didn’t release Oh! Calcutta! Pt 2. And while they have aged well, it’s good to see that in a live setting, they still display the youthful exuberance you hope to see from a band playing music that is this fast, this loud, and this much fun.