Dr. Dog w/ Kurt Vile at the Rotunda – March 2nd, 2010

Dr. Dog at the Rotunda - March 2nd, 2010

By, Sarah Glorioso

On Tuesday, March 2nd, Penn hosted an almost too-good-to-be-true $5 concert featuring Philadelphia natives Kurt Vile and the Violators and Dr. Dog. It was held at the Rotunda, which is a small, dainty concert venue composed of a small stage and psychedelic murals on its walls. The venue gives great vibes and though it was my first time there, I’m sure it won’t be my last. Everyone has that one band where they feel as though seeing them live will complete their life. Well, that’s what seeing Dr. Dog was like for me.

It began with the congregation slowly growing. The crowd was dancing to The Beatles background music and anticipating the arrival of opening act Kurt Vile. Then, three long-haired, grungy-looking men approached the stage, followed by their older percussionist.  Kurt Vile, the lead singer and guitarist, has been a member in the War on Drugs , an indie rock band with a Velvet Underground feel, and his self-titled solo career. As he mumbled a few words to the band and strapped on his guitar, I could already tell it would be an interesting show, mainly because there were three guitarists, no bassist, and a tambourine and a maraca placed sporadically on stage – having not heard anything by Kurt Vile previously, I, along with many other people, had no idea what to expect.  The performance began with massive amounts of feedback from the amps, and seemed to end that way as well, actually.  Very few words to the audience came from the mouth of this Cobain-esque front man, and the majority of things he actually did say weren’t audible anyway. With an overwhelming collaboration of feedback, trumpets, tambourines, power chords, and monotone vocals, Kurt Vile and the Violators seemed to have tried too hard to be loud and so were, to me, uninteresting. His solo performance has gotten many good reviews and brought many fans to the concert on Tuesday, but the audience, me included, got a performance completely different than expected. His ambient acoustic songs, however, were impressive, most likely because we could actually hear his voice. A close friend and Music Industry student at Drexel summed up the audiences’ perspective of the performance with a blatant; “It sucked” – this coming from a person with an extremely eclectic musical background. The overall saving grace of the performance was the percussionist, Mike Zeng, who incorporated tambourines and maracas into his drumming. For me, this was the only original component of the band, and the only portrayal of true talent.

Kurt Vile - Violating the laws of personal hygiene

This somewhat subpar performance was about to be redeemed by the electric performance of Dr. Dog, however. As the lights dimmed and the background music faded out, the highly-adored band members took their places on the stage, which was in arms length of the audience. The band decided to open with “The Worst Trip”, from their album We All Belong, to get heads bobbing and hearts beating. To keep the audience dancing, Scott McMicken, one of the lead vocalists, began playing the nostalgic, melodic song “The Old Days” from their most previous album Fate. His voice, somewhat like a present day Dylan, had a wide range of sounds and expression.  Dr. Dog also incorporated new songs from their upcoming album Shame, Shame into the show, such as “Later”, “I Only Wear Blue”, and “Mirror, Mirror.” The first single of Dr. Dog’s sixth studio album to be released April 6^th, “Shadow People”, was also played, setting the crowd absolutely on fire.  “Shadow People” is somewhat like “The Breeze” from the album Fate in that it begins quietly and solely by Scott McMicken, and then grows increasingly louder and more complex with accompaniment of instruments with Toby Leaman and Frank McElroy doing secondary vocals.  These ballads sound like the Beatle’s in their psychedelic stage and were absolutely adored by the fans present.

Bassist Toby Leaman performed his trademark bluesy songs from the album Fate such as “Hang On”, “The Ark”, and “Army of Ancients”, woohing the audience with his smooth vocals and raspy screams. The crowd around me never stopped their dancing up and down, even after they played their last song “The Rabbit, the Bat, and the Reindeer”, also from Fate. After minutes of desperately demanding an encore from the band, they came out and played a few more for the fans. Overall, the performance was electric and the energy was addictive. Looking at all of the smiling faces in the crowd brought me to realize that the music of Dr. Dog brings happiness and euphoria to them as much as it does to me. In such a close-up-and-personal venue, the sounds of everyone singing along echoed throughout the room. If you haven’t experienced a Dr. Dog concert before, I would highly suggest attending their show at the Electric Factory on May 13th.  It’ll cost more than $5 this, but I promise you, it will be worth every penny.

Buy Dr. Dog’s album Fate here!