Blonde Redhead at Echoplex

I was excited, because Blonde Redhead were playing the Dub Club at Echoplex to a sold out crowd. I’d never seen Blonde Redhead, and I’d never seen a showing at the larger Echoplex room, so it was a night of firsts. Part of Check Yo Ponytail 2 nights at Dub Club, the night is organized by Danny Johnson, Zane Landreth and Franki Chan, a group of true fun loving professionals.

Blonde Redhead were prefaced by one faceless, forgettable band called Bass Drum of Death, which seemed to want to be a high energy Jesus and Mary Chain/60s garage rock band hybrid, but which failed at everything except waving their hair around, and Luyas, which seemed to want to be an even more experimental Blonde Redhead mixed with The Books, sort of twee and musically interesting, but the impact was lost without headphones.

Blonde Redhead came onstage and everyone was quiet and they started off with ‘Black Guitar’ and ran through a smattering of songs from Penny Sparkle, hitting the halfway point of the show with ‘Spring and By Summer Fall’ from 23. Ethereal, ominous, beautiful, and cute: these are the words that describe Blonde Redhead on this hot July night. The sound was phenomenal for the club. Most people were rapt, swaying gently or dancing when the music insisted we should.

After ending the main set with ’23’ they came back up for a three song encore of ‘Melody of a Certain Three,’ ‘Silently,’ and ‘Penny Sparkle,’ which sent us off into the slowly cooling night as if on a soft cloud of fluffy love.

Blonde Redhead are touring behind their latest album Penny Sparkle.