Wolfmother
Metro Chicago - February 25th, 2016
Photos by: Tif Impson
As a fully admitted Wolfmother fanboy, I can say with utmost certainty that the second time I saw these hairy fuckers in concert last week was just as memorable as the first time almost six years ago. (If you haven't heard about my first time, it's right thrr.)
Towing a magically mythical aura behind them, Wolfmother seem to be the future of throwback rock on record, and the personification of rock expectations (rockspectations?) in concert. While their recorded music has always suggested they'd be fucking monstrous in person, I've been disappointed so often in life that I almost force myself to lower my expectations whenever I see live music.
I do my best in life to make sure I'm always, at least slightly, pleasantly surprised.
If I imagine all of the potential sources of "meh" before I experience the experience I'm excited to experience, and one or more of the "meh" doesn't occur, I win.
But the idea of seeing Wolfmother at the Metro is so fucking delicious there has to be a catch, right? Picturing the riff heavy hell yeah of these dudes in a small intimate setting such as the Metro is almost impossible to comprehend. I mean, Wolfmother are fucking perfectly arena-ready. If there ever was an adjective meant to describe the potential simultaneous-rockage capacity of a band, I'd like to think on an arena-ready scale of one to fuck yes, Wolfmother would be well passed fuck yes. The Metro can only fit like a thousand fucking people, and Wolfmother have the ability to melt tens of thousands of faces simultaneously.
Is Wolfmother playing at the Metro an indication that good things can and do happen to regular people?
But why would a band this consistently and fucking historically badass sell themselves short? Is this selling themselves short? Is getting to see the facial expressions of every single person sweating and screaming along to your music not exactly what the fuck you got into rock and roll for in the first place?
Because I had dreamt about this show for so long, and thought of every way it could possibly suck, or on the opposite murder, I came to the conclusion that there really was no possible way this show could suck any butt. At the very least, maybe the band would feel bored, or maybe disconnected from the crowd, but normally a crowd as visibly amped to see a band as this crowd was could turn that shit around pretty quick.
After standing about 15 feet from the fucking stage for over an hour of Wolfmother riff fuckage, I am ecstatic to report that Wolfmother shook the shit out of the Metro by the neck and probably enjoyed the outpouring of appreciation from the thousand of us that were there even more than we enjoyed pouring out said outpouring on the mother of Wolf.
After forgetting how massively tall Andrew Stockdale is, and how incredibly tiny a Gibson SG looks around his neck, I stood in awe at how fucking easy this dude makes the impossible sound. How does this guy come up with these riffs that sound instantly head-bangingly memorable and then not only perform them to perfection, but to wail over them so hard that even trying to impersonate his voice leads to me losing my own?
For most mortals, creating just one third of one of these riffs on a couch in our living room would be a victory, but Stockdale's almost calm delivery of his over the top vocals AND physically demanding guitar work is fucking amazing in person.
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Wolfmother @ The Metro Chicago - Photos By Tif Impson
February 25th, 2016
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Wolfmother @ The Metro Chicago - Photos By Tif Impson
February 25th, 2016
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Wolfmother @ The Metro Chicago - Photos By Tif Impson
February 25th, 2016
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Wolfmother @ The Metro Chicago - Photos By Tif Impson
February 25th, 2016
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Wolfmother @ The Metro Chicago - Photos By Tif Impson
February 25th, 2016
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Wolfmother @ The Metro Chicago - Photos By Tif Impson
February 25th, 2016
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Wolfmother @ The Metro Chicago - Photos By Tif Impson
February 25th, 2016
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Wolfmother @ The Metro Chicago - Photos By Tif Impson
February 25th, 2016
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Wolfmother @ The Metro Chicago - Photos By Tif Impson
February 25th, 2016
With drums that, right from the start of the opener "Victorious", could be felt in my fucking throat, touring drummer Alex Carapetis looks like Animal from the Muppets back there; hair in the face, sunglasses behind the hair, and a fucking toothy grin that didn't leave the stage until he did. There were dozens of points throughout the show where the intensity of the drums seemed to knock the entire venue on its side, the thumping making it feel like the air was being sucked from the fucking room. This dude is, for lack of a better word because of an overpriced American education, an animal. I gauge drummers on their level of balls by how they can make even the simplest shit look so fascinatingly cool, and well, this dude took sweating from Gatorade commercial cool into a new stratosphere of fuck yea.
Bassist and keyboardude Ian Peres looks almost disinterested upon first glance, but the next time you look back his way he's reinterpreting your earlier definition of cool into something you didn't understand now that you've seen what cool looks like. Dude fucking thumps.
Standing inside a crowd of people who packed the joint even before the opener started, the mood was as jovial as I had ever fucking seen at a rock show. It almost felt like everyone was well into paying off their student loans or five to ten years into being off their parent's health insurance, not really into fucking with anyone, completely down to get their faces melted, respectful of everyone else's space even though it was fucking nuts to butts up in there. But then Wolfmother started and fucking shoulders hit shoulders, hands shot into the air, lyrics were screamed into the air, woos were woo'd, there wasn't a lull in the entire set, sans the fifteen or so seconds in between every song where Stockdale received a freshly tuned Gibson.
Wolfmother was fucking balls. I don't think my expectations could've been met and left as far in the dust as they were, and I don't think I'm alone in sharing the sentiment. On the slow trod down the stairs and out of the building you couldn't miss the "holy shit that was awesome" that hung to the ceilings like the sweat and pot smoke we all added to in one way or another.
Based on the idea of perfectly rocked rock shows, Wolfmother is a ripped and rock and roll doodled textbook that is slow motion flipping through the air of a recently abandoned for summer high school hallway that randomly catches fire and hits the ground with a gargantuan thud that leaves a branded indentation of rock and roll fingers in the dirty linoleum.
Or something like that. I'm not really thinking straight since Thursday bros.