The Whigs and The Features at the Tractor Tavern

November 19, 2009

Whigs ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Being a legit indie rocker involves carefully managing one’s fragility factor. You’ve got to be a real person and you’ve also got to be sensitive. But you’ve got to be above it all enough to write accessible songs about your experience and then sing them night in and night out (in front of you hope thousands of people). Though I’ve seen both bands carelessly lumped in that meaningless catch-all category that is “indie”, beyond the occasional lyric, nothing about the performance of Saturday night’s bill was fragile. In my book was all rock.

As I arrived it was hard to tell whether opener the Features were the larger draw. They’ve been at it for a few years and from the get go put the nose to the grindstone and never let up, and the crowd rewarded them with dance and appreciation. “Wooden Heart,” “Temporary Blues,” and “Lions,” all from their latest album Some Kind of Salvation, are all classic fist pumping sing-along anthems best participated in after a knuckle of the house’s best bourbon for which those in the front happily obliged. Many of other songs possess a speed and attitude more indicative of modern English rock edge, albiet theirs is peppered with a Mid-South drawl. I’ve only been ephemerally interested in them up until this point, but this strong performance won them at least one new fan outright: me.

Though I’ve seen the Whigs a number of times in the past two years, this Athens’ three piece impressed me yet again with an adrenaline driven set piped through the largest cabs their touring van will likely accommodate. It’s hard to ignore that just about everything about this band’s sound seems bigger than average, a characteristic that has likely served them well over the past year in their frequent festival slots and arena warm-up positions for the likes of the Kings of Leon. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the walls of the modest club literally throbbed with concussion from each impact of drummer Julian Dorio’s hits.

Though confined mostly to the front corner of the Tractor stage, guitarist and singer Parker Gispert made full use of the lane he did have, adding his body into the equation to emphasize his musical points. Spreading his legs wide as he plants himself and then lunges, he wields his guitar as if it were bayonet equipped and he were in the midst of the most heated rock duel Ballard may have ever seen. His nemesis, mass indifference and calling it an early night, never had a chance, and bowed out of the fight early on, leaving Gispert a fair amount of time to revel and bask in the glow of that victory.

No doubt about it, both these bands deliver rock performances of the flashiest and most enthralling kind. Just rock.