There may have been a handful of people at the 9:30 Club Monday night who had caught wind of Death From Above 1979 during their original run a decade ago. A run that was painfully brief and saw the band call it quits before pulsating remixes of earworm “Sexy Results” slunk their way into indie rock dance parties nationwide. Still, while “Sexy Results” and bassist/keyboardist Jesse Keeler’s post-DFA1979 outfit, MSTRKRFT, may have endeared the Toronto duo to electronic music lovers, their 2004 LP You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine also has overtones that are decidedly grittier. As such, the show had the blistering intensity of a hardcore or metal show — the kind of intensity that should have colored the Queens of the Stone Age show back in July.
Although most of the set was culled from September’s somewhat more melodic release Physical World, there wasn’t nearly so much dancing at this show as there was headbanging, jumping and punching the air. The older songs like “Little Girl” got a more emphatic response but if anything, the live show gave more weight to those newer tunes. The keyboards during “Right On, Frankenstein!” were undeniably heavy, and Keeler’s riffing seemed speedier and more urgent onstage than it did on record. Plus, fans were still on board with the new material judging by the gleeful epithets they screamed at the stage during the one break in the action that the Toronto duo gave them.
“That man wants to put a baby in my ass,” Sebastien Grainger deadpanned in response to the male concert goer in the balcony that wanted to defy nature and have the singer/drummer’s children.
Death From Above 1979 has not exactly turned into The Faint or Chromeo during their hiatus. There was an enormous set piece of their faces with trademark elephant trunks that lit up behind the duo, but the similarities ended there. Indeed, they didn’t even play popular tunes “Sexy Results” or “Black History Month.” It almost didn’t matter once they broke out 2002’s “Dead Womb” for their encore and followed it up with crowd pleaser “Romantic Rights.” That song’s erotic, breathy vocals and squeaky bass would have been an appropriate enough ending to an insane night, but Grainger found a way to top it as he sent water (and sweat?) flying off his drum heads as he beat them into submission at the end of Physical World‘s title track. Not all comebacks are worth waiting for, but this one decidedly was.
