I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: September 8, 2019] Uniform

Uniform is a duo from New York.  But for this tour that had a live drummer Michael A. Engle (from Crawl).  The main two guys in the band are former Drunkdriver singer Michael Berdan and recording engineer Ben Greenberg (formerly of the Men) on guitar and other sounds.

I looked them up before the show to see who they were and the general impression I got was that they were loud.

So when the band walked on stage, I said to the guy next to me, “time for earplugs.”  And before I could put the second one in, Berdan pressed a button on a machine behind him and out blasted the single loudest sound I’ve ever heard.  Granted, I was standing literally right in front of the massive cabinet that the sound came from, but holy crap.  I assumed it was some kind of accidental feedback.  But indeed, no, that was the opening sound of the band.

And it never let up.

They were possibly the loudest, most intense band I’ve ever seen.  And in no way was my tiny phone microphone able to capture the weight of this music. (It’s fascinating what the phone does pick up in this situation–does it just overload on some of the noise and ignore it, thereby picking up quieter sounds that I didn’t even hear?).

Greenberg played a clear lucite guitar which was fun to watch.  The songs were fairly simple in structure–a couple of chords or a riff, but he played with such intensity–bouncing all over the stage, generating squealing feedback whenever he took his hands of the guitar, that it was impossible to know where all of the noise was coming from.  The riffs were distinct and the songs were certainly unique in their own way, but that wall of noise was a level of intensity I was not prepared for.

And that wall of noise continued during every song and often between songs.

Engle had large chains over his bass drum and why that kit wasn’t in splinters after this show I don’t know because he acted like he wanted it dead–such pounding!  I was especially delighted when he threw in an occasional double bass drum section (because the drum head was clear and you could see just how fast he was stomping).

And then there was singer Michael Berdan.  Was he ever intense.  He stomped around the stage, leaned over us and screamed at the top of his lungs.  I could see the tension in his head and neck as he yelled the vocals.  I didn’t hear too many lyrics, although for one song I did hear “Wake up!” screamed at us several times in a row.  In another one, he chanted, “This is what you want, this is what you get” (but I don’t THINK it was a Public Image Ltd. cover, although maybe it was).

One way to demonstrate how loud the band was is that during one section of a song Berdan’s mic cut out.  I could tell that he was yelling as loud as ever and I could not hear him at all, even though he was two feet away from me.

Uniform has a couple of albums out, but I couldn’t even begin to guess what songs they played.  It was an incredibly exhausting experience and I am not embarrassed to admit I was glad it was over in 35 minutes.

Amusingly, at the merch table after the show, Berdan was selling stuff and signing stuff and he was the nicest guy.  So friendly and appreciative of everyone’s compliments.  It was great to see that someone so intimidating and intense was actually really nice too.