I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: August 5, 2021] The War on Drugs

A couple of years ago our friend Cindy invited us to see The War on Drugs with her and we said no.  We didn’t really know them that well.

Cut to 2022 and they were the first live show we’d gotten to see this year.

Not a lot has changed about my appreciation of the band.  They’ve always been a band that I kind of liked–good background stuff.  Then I heard their Live Drugs album and realized that they are a great live band.

So they announced two shows in Philly and I asked if S. wanted to go.  She had been listening to them a lot this past year and so I grabbed us tickets.

I like the Met but this is the second show in a row where we were in the back orchestra section.  Now that I’ve been placed there a few times, I have finally got it in my head that when you buy tickets there, ORCH 5678 seats SUCK.  The Met is a fairly small place, so even the further away seat isn’t bad, but there’s giant poles and the entire loge hanging above you.  None of it really blocks your view, but it feels like watching a widescreen movie on a letterbox TV. 

Having said that, for this show, I didn’t mind all that much, because this wasn’t really a show to see, it was more of a show to sit back and have wash over you.  I was chuckling to myself that some bands will play 24 songs in 90 minutes, whereas The War on Drugs played 15 songs in 2 hours.

The band had announced prior to this show that they were dispensing with their opening acts for the rest of the tour to keep the band in a bubble against COVID.  Indeed, they were the first band that I had a ticket for that hadn’t cancelled or postponed their show this year.  Ironically, someone in the band caught COVID a few days ago and they had to postpone a few shows.  But as main War on Drugs dude Adam Granduciel said, “We wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

I’d always thought that the War on Drugs was just Granduciel.  Well, for this show there were seven people on stage.   West Philly music vet Eliza Hardy Jones on synthesizer, Robbie Bennett on keys, Jon Natchez on saxophone and synth, Anthony LaMarca on guitar.  A review at The Key informs me that the band isn’t just Granduciel: “founding members Dave Hartley on bass and Charlie Hall on drums.”

The band was spread out around the stage with a bank of lights behind them.  The lights were nothing amazing, but they were perfect and set the mood exactly as we wanted–warm glows, casting backlit shadows and, during the faster moments, pulsing rainbow colors.

I don’t know many individual songs, but I do know a few singles and they played everything I wanted to hear.  Most of the show was from the new album which was fine, as I don’t know the difference, really.

The opened with an orange haze of lights and the song “Old Skin.”  It was the kind of song that was exactly what we wanted sitting far back, letting the repetitive chords wash over us while Granduciel soloed for a few minutes.  His solos were lengthy and accomplished but never showoffy and they were mixed perfectly so you could hear them as part of the music, not on top of it.

After another mellow song, “Pain,” the band kicked it up with “An Ocean In Between The Waves.”  The Key’s review says that this song is “always a set highlight and usually the gateway between a gentle opening and the propulsive core.”  And that sounds about right.  I had no idea that The War on Drugs would rock that hard (people were dancing to it).

There were three more new songs and somewhere along hear I became aware of the saxophone.  I don’t really like the saxophone most of the time, but this was a baritone sax and it was used as a rhythm instrument rather than a lead.    This meant that there were low rumblings of bass notes that no guitar or keyboard could produce, and they added a tremendous low end to the sound.

After a while I checked the time–8 songs in an hour (an average of about 7 minutes per song…right on).

He played some older songs–I recognized the rocking “Red Eyes” which was infectiously fun (and had people in the seats in front of us standing up and dancing).

He dedicated a song to Fish (which I assumed was Jon Fishman from Phish and which immediately had me concerned that something had happened to him–nothing had and he may not be the Fish in question anyhow).  He then said that he was going to play a song that a guy named Kevin was constantly tweeting that they should play.  He also later said that he heard someone say a song and thought they’d play it–a dangerous precedent.

Somewhere around here we were distracted by the guy in front of us who earlier, during a lull, seemed to be having a nice time with his girlfriend and was even being social with the much older woman sitting next to him.  [Side note: there seemed to be a lot of adults with their parents at this show, which was very sweet].  The older woman was not with this guy, she was with the very tall guy sitting in front of us.  So they seemed to be getting a long very nicely–even high fiving at some point [?].  But then a few songs later, after his girlfriend had brought the two of them what was no doubt a very expensive drink, he crumbled up the hard plastic cup and threw it on the floor.  He then stood up and I heard him saying “how the fuck do I get out of here?”   And then he stormed out.  Fortunately for us (although not his girlfriend–actually maybe it was fortunate for her and they broke up after this as he seemed like a total jackass) he never came back.

That was the extent of the drama, thankfully.

I enjoyed hearing “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” and “Under the Pressure” which were both jammed out for lengthy solos.  I was especially taken with drummer Charlie Hall, the most active person on stage.  Especially when they were backlit, his arm-raising, massive drum hits looked very cool.

I wondered how long they would play. I assumed that since it was “An Evening with” it would be a long show.  Although I also assumed that tomorrow night’s show (sold out, which our night never quite did) would be the “better” show.   After “Pressure,” Granduciel said “I’ve been sick, and it took a lot for me to come out here.”  Earlier he said he got off a plane about forty minutes before the show started, which didn’t seem feasible.  Then he said this was going to be the last song (which elicited some boos).  He confessed “We’re going to take it easy tonight so we can do it again tomorrow night” (which almost sounded like he wanted to give the Friday night crowd a better show, but I don’t think he meant it that way

It turns out that the Friday night crowd got three extra songs (two were encores–we didn’t get any).  But I didn’t mind. I was happy to have a show last about two hours on a work night (we even got home before midnight).  It was a wonderful night back at live shows.

And, the one plus side to having seats way in the back is that we got out of the building before the bottleneck started and were back in our car an on 95 in less than ten minutes!  (Never had a reviewer admitted his age as much as with that last line).

Setlist
Old Skin ⊗
Pain ⇓
An Ocean in Between the Waves ≅
I Don’t Wanna Wait ⊗
Victim ⊗
Living Proof ⊗
Harmonia’s Dream ⊗
Red Eyes ≅
Brothers ∇
Come to the City ∇
Strangest Thing ⇓
I Don’t Live Here Anymore ⊗
Eyes to the Wind ≅
Under the Pressure ≅
Occasional Rain ⊗

∇ Slave Ambient (2011)
≅ Lost in the Dream (2014)
⇓ A Deeper Understanding (2017)
⊗ I Don’t Live Here Anymore (2021)