Warming Up A Frigid Room: We All Have Hooks for Hands, The Ironclads, and Doctor Doctor at Neumos

December 14, 2009

The Ironclads ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

Last Tuesday at Neumos was frigid in almost every way. It was a half-full, half-room on a Tuesday night. The security guy was spooning a space heater. The audience and the bands kept their coats, hats, and scarves on. It was so cold you could actually see your breath. But it certainly wasn’t for lack of effort on the part of the three bands who worked the stage in a valiant attempt to bring up the temperature up as Doctor Doctor joked “to a toasty 40 degrees.”

Doctor Doctor started the night off with their Franz Ferdinand meets David Bowie circa Ziggy Stardust swagger which works perfectly for a big stage like Neumos. I’ve seen the band perform on smaller stages and it can seem a little cheesy (they do a cover of T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong” for godsake), but on a stage the size of Neumos you can’t help but get caught up in the swingin’ energy of Doctor Doctor. Lead singer Nathan Gottleib leads with his pelvis and the band backs him with hooks that beg for a shimmy. When Doctor Doctor was on stage it was clear there was one answer to the frigidity of Neumos: to dance. And dance we did.

The majority of the audience was there for the hometown hiatus-ed heroes, The Ironclads. With guitarist and singer Jamie back for a week, the band crammed in more sets than many bands perform in a month and most of the folks in the audience at Neumos saw the band more than once in that short time. That’s the kind of devotion and adoration Ironclads fans feel for the band, myself included. With all of us pressed tightly against the stage singing along to every twisting tale, including the debut of a brand new song (”Emily”) which rivals the Ironclads already beloved best, the band’s hiatus seemed like a hazy nightmare. Hopefully there will be more spurts of Ironclads shows in the future, with the band continuing to create and perform whenever they can. It was clear to me and everyone else who was at Neumos that night, no mater the circumstance, The Ironclads will always have a crowd eager to sing along to their songs.

Sadly, most of that crowd didn’t stay to enjoy the headliners of the evening, Sioux Falls, South Dakota’s We All Have Hooks for Hands. Considering their hometown the band didn’t seem fazed at all by the chilly temperature, though the sparsity of the audience did seem to be weighing on the band. A few songs in, the lead singer said “this is the portion of the show when we play some old songs to get folks really excited, but….” his voice trailed off with a tinge of sad recognition…this wasn’t that crowd. Even if you weren’t familiar with We All Have Hooks For Hands, those of us who stayed were treated to a solid set of upbeat angular pop by a sprawling band of sweatered multi-instrumentalists. Were they a local band, it’s easy to image they would draw the same sort of crowd The Ironclads, full of fans and friends crowded together as they sang along.

Unfortunately, though it felt like Sioux Falls temperature-wise, the band was actually in Seattle, it was a Tuesday night, and for us Seattleites, it was really really cold. If you missed out on We All Have Hooks for hands because you left after The Ironclads or you didn’t make it out at all last Tuesday, we recommend you check them out the next time they are in town. Especially if you’re a fan of songs that straddle indie folk and punk or if seeing dueling drummers battle it out on a single bass drum intrigues you…. so basically, all of you.