Pelican / Big Business

live in Nashville (2005)

ekmesnz

On July 31, Pelican played a show with Big Business and Destroy Destroy Destroy at The Muse in Nashville, TN.

It would be harder to select a stranger combination of music for a single show. Synthesizer death metal and noisecore preceded Pelican's haunting, epic instrumental rock. Destroy Destroy Destroy was the first onstage, and they brought with them a generic if not wholly unpleasant brand of constant headbanging noise, as well as a lead singer wearing a speedo, gauntlets, and wielding a battle axe. The band was trailed by a number of fans that left shortly after their short, frenetic set. According to the band, they're "evil."

Big Business followed, bringing along its own group of dedicated fans as the duo unleashed one distorted bass and one loud drum set. Each of their songs was virtually indistinguishable from the next, and their performance, combined with Destroy Destroy Destroy's antics, made for a relatively unpleasant two hours.

Pelican made up for their abysmal stage-mates, however. Showing a professional style that seemed positively uncanny given the situation, they played a solid hour and a half of quite remarkable music that struck me as a combination of Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, and pure cool. They played a smattering of songs including a few from their new full-length, The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw. In contrast to the openers, they were positively phenomenal, and, indeed, this might have been their plan: to find two bands so bad, so incomprehensibly unremarkable, that, by comparison, their own unearthly sounds would blow the crowd away. This they did.