After more than 15 years of defying classification and still making it work, Deerhoof have established themselves as a band that simply are what they are.
This is a polarising position in which listeners will either adore them or wonder what all the fuss is about, without much room for middle ground between the two.
That being the case, the band’s show at the Annandale Hotel wasn’t so much about winning over the audience as it was a victory lap for the band and a chance to play for the oddballs who keep coming back to their music.
There was a lot of love and respect in the room, even for the local support acts.
Drum Drum opened the night with a tentative set of garage rock tunes, which were stripped to their bare bones and delivered in the slacker vernacular.
It came across as endearing on the whole but the role of the reluctant frontman only got them so far, the hook laden guitar riffs which pretty much carry the band pulled them the rest of the way.
Mere Women on the other hand were all enthusiasm and energy. While the reverb overloaded vocals and shimmering guitar lines lay the foundation for the band’s arty vibe, it is the drummer, who sometimes sounds like two drummers, who turned what could be a set of washed out treble into a propulsive, almost tribal experience.
Even more amazing was the fact that the drummer on the night was apparently a ring-in. He was the defining member of the group, technically and emotively showing up the permanent members.
In much the same way, Deerhoof’s drummer, Greg Saunier, is the propulsive force behind his band. His flamboyant and technically flawless playing style would swamp the majority of players in any other lineup (not to mention his physical stature on the stage), however, Deerhoof’s success live really lies in the perfect yin-yang type balance they have.
On one side of the stage is the frantic Saunier, on the other is the calm, often deadpan Satomi Matsuzaki who physically (she’s a four foot Japenese woman) and musically offsets the wild rhythms with her kookily sweet melodies and sparse bass lines.
In between the two poles, the guitarists: John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez, trade counter rhythms and flourishes with impeccable precision, filling out the middle ground between Saunier and Matsuzaki with odd-bod experimentations which somehow connect the dots between the two.
Deerhoof have never set out to please, but it is their challenging nature that often makes them so pleasing. When the band swings from a brief passage of beautiful pop into a thrashing discombobulated completion of sounds, the audience can’t help but be amazed.
It’s like watching a beautifully orchestrated car-crash that never actually crashes.
Despite their show opening with vintage track “Dummy Discards A Heart”, from their 2003 album Apple O’, the set is made up heavily of material from the group’s more recent, and frankly more disappointing albums, which left the audience wanting for a number of the Deerhoof ‘hits’ by the end of the night.
The live experience of these tracks from the later albums (Breakup Songs, Deerhoof vs Evil) gave the songs more context, the frantic wig-outs which the ensemble expertly managed to stop on a knife’s edge, then drop back into without build up or fanfare, was breathtaking.
This type of thing can be easily manufactured in a studio, though to see them do it live went some way to justifying their shift towards this more frantic and fractured approach to songwriting of late.
At the end of their encore Rodriguez hung his guitar by the neck from the ceiling and let his instrument become possessed by feedback.
He had successfully wrung everything he could out of that guitar for the past hour or so and there was nothing more for him to do than to let go and let the guitar speak for itself.
After the taut precision he had exercised over the instrument for the entire set, to hear what letting the wheels really fall off sounded like served to remind the audience exactly how in control of this beautiful mess they really had been all along.
Deerhoof’s entire performance was an affront to the senses in one way or another, but a damn enjoyable one nonetheless.
