Pitchfork Feature: Live: The Constantines
And ok. Well, i know pitchfork's gotta be too cool for school and all. But mang, I was AT that show, and let me tell you, there was more holy rock that was being ladled out at that show than in one million clap your hands, say what block parties in the part of heaven they call brooklyn.
I'm totally ok with the reviewer knowing the in's and outs of Chad Vangellen. I was up front, never heard of the guy and wanted to see what he brought. He brought some poppy-hoody-wearing-lifestyle-in-the-beater-car music. I was in the front so I couldn't get the full vibe. He had a nice strummy fender jaguar that his sometimes finger picked with great skill...but he didn't blow my hair back or anything.
Then the Cons came out. and Fool, they STARTED with "Young Lions" a song so rock they only need one chord for the majority of the song. And when they hit that first G chord. All the guitars were lifted in tribute to the Holy and Sacred sound of tube amps being overdriven. The Bass hoisted, the keyboardist, turned away from the audience, still playing his chord and lifted his finger skyward, two goregeous guitars were pointed towards the heavens as the feedback took over in a wash of harmonics. And that rock salute stayed up there for enough time for the audience to feel amused, then questioning, then awkward, then they realized that, goddamnit, they were in the Church of the Constantines' now and they'd better spectacles/testicles/dobbin/genuflect/kneel, or ablute themselve if they wanted to follow them into this sacred time. And then the salute came crashing down into the verse;
OhAnd I'm here to tell you. You don't get more trancendent than that. That show went beyond mere mechanical / somatic movements and time. There was a communication of a larger world of experience that wrapped around our beings like the pain and exhiliration of truly being alive.
Young Lions
This is your kingdom...
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