Oblivians/Gories: Live at the Hi-Tone, Memphis, TN, June 20th, 2009
Both of these bands were at the forefront of a garage-rock revival that may have morphed into several different strains, but has yet to weaken over the past two decades. It just adapted to absorb power-pop (around 2000), post-punk in the form of darkwave (also around 2000, and again today), and parts of today’s CollageCore movement. The trash-centric among the garage demographic still wholeheartedly swallow the idea of the Gories as a band incapable of any wrong moves. They’re right, as long as “having an insanely overrated discography” and “sucking wildly on the evening of June 20th” are not seen as “wrong moves.” First off, when I walked into the sold-out, sauna-like Hi-Tone approximately two songs into the Gories set, I honestly thought that the sounds were coming from a CD being played through the house stereo. And Mick didn’t move. The man that fronts The Dirtbombs performed as if his feet were glued to the stage. Of course, the crowd treated it like an ex-con treats the first post-incarceration sirloin steak.
This was remedied by what followed, and my opinion has little to do with hometown bias. Along with Cheater Slicks, The Necessary Evils, and a few Japanese bands, the Oblivians kept 90’s garage rock from collapsing under tons of assembly-line retro-robot mediocrity as Estrus and Crypt lost the quality plot and spat out anything with an unfortunately-topless barfly on the cover. The Oblivians that reunited to play this inaugural one-two reunion punch (the weekend kicked off several weeks in the states and Europe) shows was the Oblivians from the mid-’90s. The phone stayed on the hook during the second half of the evening; an almost full circle journey bulldozing over the three members’ respective post-Oblivians endeavors. Let’s put it this way: When Quintron joined the band for the final third of the set, he WASN’T the focus of what was happening onstage. That’s a first.
(Andrew Earles)
