The Secret Machines/The Middle East

It was a Monday, and ish needed to get done. I had three essays and an art project due that week, and when I finally acquired some free time I decided to spend it in the most productive way possible--completely ignoring my workload and hopping one stop away on the T to see The Secret Machines. And my time was well worth it. Like TVOTR, I've seen The Secret Machines before, although the Secret Machines were a significantly different band I last saw them because original guitarist and backing vocals Benjamin Curtis, has left the band and is now replaced by Phil Karnats. In a three-person band, this makes a huge difference so I tried to go into the concert with an open mind. The Middle East is a weird music venue, because the atmosphere it gives off is far more bar-ish than concert venue. It seemed like a lot of the crowd was simply bar-goers (the most hardcore of the alcoholics...keep in mind that this is still a Monday night). Then again, I should use the word "crowd" in relative terms. Some of the high school concerts I went to that consisted mainly of pre-pubescent wannabe-stoners had much rowdier and far more numerous numbers attending. With that said, there was something to be said for being able to literally reach out and touch The Secret Machines without waiting at the show beforehand for hours and hours. Nonetheless, the absence of a real 'crowd" gave the show a very different feel than a typical concert.

The most notable thing about this show was that it was LOUD. Not loud like, "oh hey, this is awesome I really feel the music" loud, but the kind of loud where the beginning of every song made me jump because it sounded like an explosion, and every once in a while during the show I would notice how loud it was and cover my ears, noticing that it was still loud, and every time I unplugged my ears I could feel millions and millions of hair follicles being disabled for life. It was way unpleasent. I've made a resolution to wear earplugs the next time I go to a show. My ears were honest to god numb for maybe 2 days after seeing this. The other issue was the levels of the mikes--even though drums pretty much define the Secret Machines, they were way too loud compared to the rest of the band, and the voice mikes were way too quiet. You pretty much couldn't hear the lyrics to any of the songs, and singing along was weird because you couldn't hear either your own voice or the singer's voice so everythign was still sort of muted even if you were singing along. I don't think these sound issues were The Secret Machine's fault, becuase the show beforehand was equally as loud although I didn't notice any voice mike levels issues.

It's a shame that the volume was distracting to the show, becuase the music itself was acutally quite good. Unlike previous shows the Secret Machines did in the past (which were largely jam band-ish, playing for 25 minutes at a time, etc), this one definately featured more legit songs. The begining of the show was a nice mixture of a few old songs with a lot of their newer songs (which I am not that familiar with). This part of the show was good although as usual the crowd was more interested in the older songs rather than the newer songs they were trying to promote. It was a good mix though, so no one seemed too pissed.

The middle segment of the show was almost exclusively new songs. Not just old songs, but almost very mellow songs that were weird to dance to at a concert. At this point of the show, I was still enjoying myself, but the show was already running much longer than I expected. At a certain point, all their newer mellow songs started to somewhat blend together, and I began wondering if the show continued like this whether or not this was worth the 5 extra years of deafness the noise levels would inevitably cause.

What really shone was the end of the show, which featured nearly all old songs. I was really surprised that they did this considering 1/3 of the band was different from the time that these old songs were made. Regardless, it was nice to see that the spirit of the band was still there despite the membership shift. People were clearly most enthusiastic about the prospect of hearing the songs that got them hooked on The Secret Machines in the first place (slash drunk bar-goers had acquired the liquid courage to get themselves out there and dance). I was thoroughly impressed with the fact that they played literally without exception all of my favorite of their songs. "Lightening Blue Eyes" in particular was an amazing performance, although once again it was somehwat dissapointing that you couldn't really hear the singer.

In some ways, I wish that the Secret Machines had cut out the middle 45 minutes or so and just kept their show to the begining and end (as I have arbitrarily portioned this show into) segments. It was a two hour show, and with noise levels that loud it felt like longer. All in all, it was very worth my time and I really liked the Middle East as a venue (although I would STRONGLY recommend going with earplugs next time), I really and legitimately did spend a good portion of the show debating leaving, despite the awesomeness of the performance, just because it was so excessively loud and I truly felt like I was damaging my hearing by staying. It was not only unpleasent, but distracting. That said, it's hard to remove the volume issues from my perception of the show, but the Secret Machines had a great performance. They played as if they were filling an arena rather than a maybe 100 person (at best) crowd. Even though it wasn't completely member-wise the Secret Machines that I knew and loved, it sure sounded like it was.