Modest Mouse continues to grow
Modest Mouse
Avalon, Boston, Massachusetts
August 7, 2004
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in The Boston Globe, August 10, 2004
Like their intended Lollapalooza tourmates the Flaming Lips, Modest Mouse
have pulled off the rare trick of achieving a fair degree of commercial success
on a major label without hiding their weirdnesses or, harder still, losing
their indie credibility. The people who attended Saturday’s sold-out show
at the Avalon were as well-versed in the band’s back catalog as they were
in their latest album, Good News For People Who Love Bad News (Epic).
That became clear when the opening “Paper Thin Walls” was followed immediately
by “Float On.” Playing the album’s big single so early in the evening could
have been a disastrous anticlimax, but it was received as simply one song
to get excited about among many. There wasn’t a single song performed all
evening that didn’t cause some pocket of the audience to erupt into cheers
within the first few notes.
Running through their catalog during the 80-minute set, Modest Mouse explored
some of the same sonically lush ground as the Flaming Lips but with a more
aggressive rhythmic foundation similar to bands like Franz Ferdinand. That
was aided by the permanent presence of a second drummer/percussionist on
stage, and there were times when the band swelled from five to seven performers,
with the auxiliary members adding violin, cello, vocals and still more percussion.
With the rest of the band deemphasized in low-contrast blue light, frontman
Isaac Brock was clearly Modest Mouse’s focal point. Standing off to the side
rather than stage center, he barely interacted directly with the audience,
limiting his few comments to when the band entered or exited the stage. He
generally looked at his guitar when his eyes weren’t closed entirely, and
the keyboard he played during the spacey and warm “The World At Large” pointed
to the wings, not the audience.
Every now and then, though, something would sneak through, and Brock would
infuse songs like “Interstate 8” with a wild-eyed scream as he took on the
demeanor of a twitchy rock god. A number of songs progressed to fierce climaxes.
“Cowboy Dan,” in particular, was expanded from just over six minutes on 1997’s
The Lonesome Crowded West to more than ten, as he and Dann Gallucci
attacked their guitars to create almost mathematical squalls of noise atop
a bed of charging drums. Brock may not know how to talk to an audience, but
Modest Mouse have reached a point where their music can speak for itself.