Photos by Alex Schelldorf
Roughly an hour into Friday night’s Refused show at Rock & Roll Hotel, singer Dennis Lyxzén acknowledged the benefits of playing in a small, sticky room. He referred to the show as Sweat Fest 2015 and said that he could taste the sweat of everyone in the room. “You taste awesome,” he said.
That taste of D.C. rock club perspiration is one Lyxzén likely hadn’t felt on his tongue in years. During their previous trip to the area in 2012, the ’90s Swedish post-hardcore powerhouse had played at the considerably larger and airier Fillmore and their next visit in August will be to the Merriweather Post Pavilion with Faith No More. (On a related note, Lyxzén quipped that he was thrilled to be able to tell his parents that he was going to play Madison Square Garden … but that it must have been quite a let down to hear that they were only the opening band.)
However, Refused is one of those bands wherein watching them amongst another 300 drenched and active bodies is the ideal, not the compromise. Most good hardcore bands have energy, but there’s a taut urgency to Refused’s songs that filled the room with the sort of breaking point tension that goes immediately to the gut. Whether their riffs were sludgy doom-influenced dirges or speedy ’80s-influenced slaps to the face (which they usually were) they had the audience at full attention. Admittedly, the inability to sing along with the songs off of upcoming release Freedom gave the crowd a bit of a break from their constant state of motion, but the respite was short-lived.
Furthermore, the band admitted to feeling a particular affinity with this city, which may have also been why this show felt particularly intense. Refused toured regularly with Frodus during their active years in the ’90s (and Frodus drummer Jason Hamacher could be seen shooting photos from the left side of the stage) and Lyxzén admitted that they had stolen a lot of riffs from Fugazi. But more notably, the seething anti-capitalist lyrics made Refused a thematic brother in arms (which made the $35 tickets something of a surprise).
The other surprise was that original Refused fans had no problem jumping back into the pit as if they were eighteen again. Lyxzén acknowledged this saying that he could see on the faces of many of the attendees the look of “we are probably too old to do this [but] we’re doing it anyway.” And although we all felt the after effects of that show for the rest of the weekend, the truth is that such intense showcases of camaraderie and high energy are why it’s worth going to see live music in the first place.
