Brian Slattery Photos
Videodome.
On Wednesday night at Cafe Nine on the corner of State and Crown, two area bands, Nervous City and Videodome, welcomed a touring band, Parachute Club, to its first-ever gig in the state of Connecticut with big riffs, squalls of guitar noise, and an appreciative crowd of rock fans ready to stay up and have a good time.
Connecticut-based Nervous City — Joe Russo and Tony Mascolo each on vocals and guitar, Grayson Jeffries on bass, and Wes Cross on drums — started off the night big and friendly with an amiable set of smart rockers. Mascolo and Russo traded vocal duties and sometimes harmonized, likewise switching off between solo to rhythm playing, and sometimes joining forces to build a wall of sound, with Cross’s precise yet explosive drumming and Jeffries’s strong bass as a foundation. Each song delivered hooks and melodies to catch the ear, while also offering enough twists and turns to keep it engaged. Each musician played with obvious enthusiasm for the material and camaraderie for his fellow bandmates.
This was borne out in the good-natured, self-deprecating banter between songs. “We only have four songs left, so please clap,” Mascolo said, to laughter, halfway through their set. Earlier, Russo announced that it was Jeffries’s birthday, not as a human, but as a new member of the band.
“I’m zero years old,” Jeffries obliged.
“Happy birthday, you idiot,” someone piped up from the crowd, garnering laughter from the band.
New Haven-based Videodome — Rebecca Kaplan on vocals, Keenan O’Connor on guitar, Mike Tobey on bass, and Killian Appleby on drums — ransacked the stage with a ferocious set of originals that showed the band remains in peak form since the March release of their album The Incidental Homosexual… Or, a Hate Crime in My Bedroom. The set opened with a metallic shriek from O’Connor’s guitar, a pounding rhythm from Tobey and Appleby, as Kaplan sent out a messsage. “Think about the families, the moms, the children of the world.” In song after song, the band members tore into their material, with Tobey and Appleby digging deep, O’Connor careening between piercing riffs and wrenching noise, and Kaplan uncoiling her voice from a coo to a raging scream.
Videodome’s banter from the stage was frequently funny: “this one’s about an NSA agent who falls in love with the guy he’s watching jerk off through his videocam. Love is love,” Kaplan said by way of introducing the song “Robot Bathhouse.” But they had a serious point to make, too, about defiance and the fight to be accepted. “Never asked for this body / So let’s sell it for parts / Feed the vermin the scraps / Remake me in my own image,” Kaplan sings on “Have You Tried Speaking to the Manager … Within?” “Man made god in his own image / That’s why he never comes around.” On stage, all of this played to lethal effect. Like so many punks before them, Videodome made a party with a purpose.
“This is our first ever show playing in Connecticut, so that was our first ever song played in Connecticut,” said Ricky Kroby, vocalist and bassist for the Boston-based band Parachute Club. “Here’s our second one.” Together, Kroby, Aaron Leventhal on guitar, and Charlie Tilton on drums worked through a set of their songs that closed out the night. With big riffs from Leventhal, a heavy yet tight low end from Kroby and Tilton, and vocals from Kroby that pitched from an uneasy croon to throat-tearing shout, Parachute Club kept the walls of the club shaking.
The crowd was getting a little smaller by the end of the band’s set, with some people schmoozing on the sidewalk outside in the night air, still a little warmer than usual. But the people inside didn’t seem ready to go home yet. They wanted to hear earfuls of music and move their feet to it. Parachute Club gave them what they needed.