frodus

Seminal spazzcore band Frodus, who broke up before I had the pleasure of listening to them, have regrouped almost 10 years later and are playing once again! On Saturday they played the Black Cat, and I went, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, excited to see them.

I showed up early enough to see the end of the first, and all of the second acts. The first act immediately made me think of the "space rock" stage at fun fun fun fest lat year, and I was left wondering what they were doing playing this show. My buddy said it sounded like they had tried really hard to write one good song, and then played it over and over again. We grabbed some beers and sat in the back and waited for the next act.

The next act was much the same, stylistically. If you go to a punk show, and see the guitarist of any of the bands "rocking out" by gently rotating his body back and forth while he nods, also gently, something is wrong. They sounded like they had grown up listening to Don Cabellero, and really, really wanted to be that good, but it was too hard so they added some lyrics and hoped no one would notice.

At this point I was getting nervous. I didn't own any Frodus records, could I have heard the only good songs and the rest sounded like these other guys? Had I made a grave error in judgement? I was actually jumpy as they were tuning up and taking the stage.

They came out and started off like a bomb exploding and I could feel waves of relief come crashing down on me. The first 3 songs were like one long crescendo building to an insane sonic peak. I tried to get some pics, but there was just too much movement for the camera in my phone to capture it.

you wouldn't even know it was Frodus if it weren't for the base drum

It was almost like it was planned to have oddly misplaced music as the intro, it made the aural assault of the headline seem that much more significant.

Another thing they did, which I REALLY thought was great was to eschew the "encore". Encores are total bullshit, and I think I've only ever seen one real one. Even that one was pretty expected.

At the end of the set, Frodus stopped, the singer said it was time for a period of reflection, cause encores are stupid, and they brought out chairs and sat there for a minute in silence. They then got up, played more, thanked everyone, then the show was over.

If you have the chance to see Frodus, do it.