The Jackpot was so hot up by the stage that within five minutes of last night's show starting, pretty much the entire audience was covered with a sheen of sweat. The crowd -- a mix of older hipsters and all-ages punk rockers -- crammed in near the stage, eager to see Danish imports Iceage.
The foursome played with fury. It's strange, but two of the t-shirts worn by members of the band do a very accurate job of displaying their approach to punk/hardcore: Poison Idea and Bathory. Their almost casual disregard for standard punk tropes certainly dovetails with Poison Idea, and the cold, dystopic tone shares a lot with the black metal of Bathory.
In terms of show, it had a few things that belie the youth of Iceage. Guitars fed back incessantly between songs, and frontman Elias Ronnenfelt walked onstage with a dangling, broken guitar string hanging from his duct-taped instrument. Three songs in, he'd shredded so hard, you could see his pick chip in front of you, to the point that he had to beg one off an audience member in order to replace it.Iceage shows promise, and their debut certainly offers a new approach to punk, but as a live act, they were smoked by the more-accomplished local openers. The brevity of their set (less than 20 minutes) seemed to amaze more people than the actual performance.
Overheard (re: Mouthbreathers): "How many times have you seen this band in the past month?"
Notebook dump: "First band on at 9:30. Sadly, this still constitutes an 'early' show."
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