Tight Fit – White Denim Live in Paris

Review by Matthew Mowatt – Nouveau Casino, Paris – Aug 24th, 2011

There’s that age-old argument between music snobs and critics alike: Are you more of a live music person or a studio produced type? This question may not apply to many bands (because they are horrible in any way one listens to them), but it does to important ones – I’ve heard some stories about live Dylan (fans have been complaining for years regardless whether he plugged in or not). The fact is that, after listening to all five of White Denim’s albums, I was feeling quite hesitant to watch them live – “They sound like a mix of a lot of other bands that I wouldn’t like to see on stage.” How wrong I was to have told myself this.

As I arrived to the Nouveau Casino, the Royal Bangs had already blasted off. Despite the fact that there weren’t very many people during their set, front man Ryan Shaefer was giving it his all with equally energetic backup from drummer Chris Rusk and guitarist Sam Stratton. By nearly the end of their set, the crowd swelled and the prospects were looking good. The Royal Bangs finished, well, with a bang, leaving a thirsty bunch of fans giddy with anticipation.

There was little intermission between sets as White Denim took nearly no time setting up. At first, when I saw bassist Steven Terebecki, I thought he was some nerd-attempting-hipster roadie who, awkwardly positioned at center stage, was doing a sound-check for the real bassist. In fact, the staging of the band took me off guard completely as Terebecki stayed center stage on bass and singer/guitarist James Petralli hid away at stage left, leaving drummer Joshua Block and guitarist Austin Jenkins to form a kind of separated duo on stage right/back. Seeing this, looking at the distinct style of each member (not only in clothing but attitude) I knew that I was in for something unexpected. Terebecki took the band forward in what I correctly guessed seconds later as the opening to The Doors “This is the End”, only to quickly morph into one of their own songs before I knew what had happened. It gave me this whiplash effect of the ears, second guessing myself throughout long solos from both Petralli and Jenkins. This effect was played a few times, or so I thought, as Jenkins hammered-on an AC/DC “Thunderstruck” while jumping into “Let’s Talk About It”, arguably their best-known tune. The band became more of a biological experiment in sound, subtly and quickly mixing in familiar tunes (as an homage, perhaps?) only to bury them with their own jamming, riffing and rocking – did I just hear Boston “More than a Feeling”? Maybe, but I’m not sure. Now I hear “Shake Shake Shake”. And I don’t recall them ever stopping between songs, giving the entire hour-long set a feeling of some super sound organism of absolute rock. The chemistry (pun welcomed) between Block, Jenkins and Petralli was something I’ve hardly seen at live shows: they shot out smiles and nods to each other, communicating with gestures and sounds, giving an air of “this could possibly be our best show ever” attitude, and I sensed no deception behind this, while Petralli, standing in a darker part of the stage, occasionally smirked with the rest of the guys, but kept humbly quiet (except for the singing, of course) on his side. No surprise that White Denim appropriately titled one of their albums Workout Holiday, because this is what they were having in front of me.

So, after an encore, which was lengthy and subdued, calming a juiced-up audience, the argument no longer remains for White Denim for that small pocket of music snobs (some of who were, after the show, imitating the finger-stretched gymnastics of Terebecki, others talking about the references the band had made during their splicing and hybridizing of familiar tunes into their own Joycean progressive rock novel). If you’re a fan of White Denim’s studio albums, then their live music will make you a loyal fan for life.