St. Louis, MO, June 25th, 2004
Despite technical difficulties, despite a bad venue, and despite the
fact that it usually takes a fire under St. Louis' ass to get anybody
to dance, !!! came to the infamous Creepy Crawl and left the crowd
exhausted and cheering for more. The doors opened at 7:30 and, perhaps
around 8:15 or so various members of the band came on stage and started
spinning records, DJing everything from hip hop and Prince to
electronic funk and foot-tapping pop songs and winning over the crowd
before a single song had been played. As the group got on stage and
began to jam for a soundcheck, several confusing glances were exchanged
from the stage to the mixing board, keyboards glitched up, monitors
fizzled, Justin Vandervolgen appeared frustrated, and Nic Offer kept
the crowd together, continuing to dance to the house music and
promising the crowd that they had come to "rock ass." Once things had
sort of been worked out (many of the members just shrugging and
suggesting they start the music up) the first notes of "Pardon My
Freedom" poured out of the speakers. I've never seen a St. Louis crowd
react the way they did to the music that night: everyone
was sweating their ass off, jumping about, slamming their feet to the
floor, and waving their hands in the air because !!! were fucking
tearing into the soul of excellence and pouring out an energy that I've
never seen from any performers anywhere. Disaster struck again and the
monitors that were supposed to be playing behind the percussionists
bugged out and completely died. A friend of mine echoed my sentiments
when he said "fuck this place, they should've played at Mississippi
Nights." The Creepy Crawl is incredibly notorious for being a venue
without much to brag about, but despite difficulties the band pressed
on and continued tearing the roof off the ceiling and ejecting it into
the Mississippi River by playing "Dear Can/King's Weed" with "Hello? Is
This Thing On" and "Me and Giuliana Down by the Schoolyard" following
right behind. Despite the drummer's being virtually deaf to the rest of
the band, the songs sounded absolutely perfect and at no point did
anybody in the crowd stop moving. Nic Offer could've told us all to
jump off a bridge that night and, in all likely hood, many of us would
have. At one point there were kids up on stage dancing with members of
the band and Offer was hanging over the crowd from a post near the
stage screaming "can U feel it intensify" like a man possessed by the
energy that threatened to blow the glass right out of the windows. Only
five songs were played, but after the show I managed to ask the band
some questions and it was the technical difficulties that kept them
from playing further. 5 songs, over an hour of non-stop dance mania,
over three hours of total music (including the DJ work), and !!! left
without a single mention of disappointment or dissent from the crowd.
If !!! can own a city for a night like this with all these technical
difficulties, then I can't imagine how incredibly intense they must be
when they're at a venue that can actually manage their equipment
correctly. I suppose that says something about the band and their
dedication, though: although problems persisted, !!! played one of the
best and certainly the most fun shows I've ever been to. There is
absolutely no excuse for missing a show from these guys and they are
still on tour in the US through June 29th. Beginning July 2nd they will
be touring throughout Europe with a special show being staged in Japan.
The website says there are more US dates to come and all I can do is
wait patiently and hope they either come back to St. Louis are play
somewhere very close.