Brian Slattery Photo
Blurr.
Mickey Blurr turned out to have a wicked deadpan. “The Beatles are next,” he said to the audience at Cafe Nine on Wednesday night. “I’m so happy to open for the Beatles.”
“Not a lot of pressure,” an audience member deadpanned back.
Blurr was referring to headlining band Matt DeMello and the Significant Looks, a New York-based group passing through town on a mission to perform all of The Beatles’ Abbey Road in celebration of that album’s 50th birthday. But DeMello’s act, it turned out, would be sandwiched in between two slices of New Haven’s young music scene.
The Elm City-based Mickey Blurr had a sound that partook of solid ‘60s and ‘70s pop but still felt like indie rock of today. It was energetic and danceable, shot through with a sly, jaundiced humor that hooked the audience early.
“in Ancient Greece there were these mystery cults who would worship Dionysus,” Blurr said at the beginning of his set. He explained that Dionysus was the god of wine and music, the god of chaos, the god of partying. “That’s your cue,” he added.
Midway through his set, he added a little chaos of his own, jumping into the crowd with electric guitar in hand to take a solo from in front of the stage, and later abandoning the instrument so he could dive off a chair and croon a verse from the fetal position on the Cafe Nine floor — moves the audience ate up.
“Tonight is a lesson in how much abuse a Fender Jazzmaster can take,” he said, referring to his instrument. “Apparently quite a lot.”
Matt DeMello and the Significant Looks — Liz Wagner Biro, Jennifer Nordmark, Roo O’Donnell, and Alex Busi, all playing multiple instruments and switching vocal duties — then took the stage, and a deep breath.
“It brings me great pleasure to tell you this is the Beatles. Sort of,” DeMello said. “I can’t guarantee it’ll come out sounding note for note like you expect, but if you have an open mind, I think we’ll have a lot of fun.”
Sure enough, “Come Together’ started off as a piano boogie that later got tinged with funk. The band graced “Something” with a shambolic groove. But others were startlingly faithful to the originals, like “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” which DeMello revealed was widely considered to be the worst song on Abbey Road.
“They’re wrong,” he said. “It’s ‘Sun King.’” This was met with boos from the audience. “What the hell?” DeMello said. “You got ‘Sun King’ fans in here?”
“Oh! Darling” was a scorcher, true to the spirit of the original, as was “Octopus’s Garden, which switched up vocals and instruments. “I Want You” — which, DeMello said, was the last song the Beatles actually recorded together — was inbued with more spaciness, particularly from DeMello’s keyboards, and “Here Comes The Sun” had a darker, more melancholy cast to it that brought out the denser harmonies embedded in the original. “Because” was done a cappella.
The second half of the album got people up to dance, and they stayed that way all the way through “Carry That Weight” and to “The End.” Just before performing the quick ending song, “Her Majesty,” DeMello said that one of the reasons he had wanted to perform all of Abbey Road this year was that, this year in particular, “peace, love, and understanding are no longer a joke anymore. So, be good to your neighbor.”
But the second half of DeMello’s set had gotten the audience on his feet, and people weren’t ready to sit back down again. They wanted an after party, and the New Haven-based Tate and Silas delivered.
“We’re going to wind down a little bit,” said Tate Brooks (vocals and guitar), but like many things he said, like when he announced that he and Silas were from Arkansas, he was just kidding. Instead, he and Silas Lourenco-Lang on bass, bass drum, and vocals, tore through a set of original primitive rock ‘n’ roll that stripped it down to its barest essence. Lourenco-Lang pounded out the beat and held down the low end while Brooks chopped out chords and both barked and howled out vocals. “Go crazy! Lose it!” Brooks said. The audience did.
In between numbers, Brooks gave quick (“this is a song about loving your dog”) and not-so-quick (“this is a tragic story about a chemical spill that flooded our town of Branford, Connecticut. We’re still facing the consequences. I’m growing an eye out of the back of my knee. I’m Eric Clapton, but you can call me ‘Slowhand.’”) synopses of the band’s songs before ripping through another one. He was all too adept at dealing with hecklers as well.
“You got T‑shirts?” someone asked.
“I got T‑shirts!” Brooks said. “I got CDs!”
“You sellout!” the person responded.
“Go buy them!” Brooks yelled back. “This is a song about doing nothing and wasting your time.” Halfway through that song, he leapt into a rotgut solo. “Here comes that slowhand!” he yelled, as he dropped to his knees to play. The song about loving your dog — “The Dog Song” got about half the people who were gathered close to the stage to get up onto it with the band.
“This has been great,” Brooks said toward the end of the set. “The Beatles are my favorite band.”
“The Beatles are everybody’s favorite band!” someone in the audience said.
“Just kidding,” Brooks said. “I never liked them.” But he turned out to be kidding about that, as everyone got up on stage again so Tate and Silas could lead them through “She Loves Me.” Harmonies and backup singing abounded, with people taking turns shouting the melody through the microphone.
“This is the most fun I’ve had in so long,” someone said from the stage.