To be totally honest, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to this show at first. As anyone who reads this blog regularly already knows, I absolutely love MISSION OF BURMA. However, my fiancee and I had just seen them in New York a mere two weeks earlier and they were playing the exact same show (doing all of Signals, Calls and Marches). We did this primarily because the Philly show wasn’t announced until weeks after the New York one was and by that point we’d already bought tickets for the New York show.
Nevertheless, several factors influenced our decision to attend this show. The first and most important factor was the addition of ‘90s indie legends VERSUS as the opening act! I’d heard about them playing a few shows here and there, but hadn’t caught any of their recent shows up to that point. The 3 times I saw them in the ‘90s and records like the excellent singles compilation Dead Leaves solidified their place in my heart as one of the ‘90s best and most underrated bands. Furthermore, Mission of Burma were so good a few weeks ago that it made me wanna see them that much more.
First up was Versus, though, and boy were they great. I was a little worried at first, though, as the first 3 songs they did were tentative, muted and oddly sloppy. And then something magical happened. It was if singer/guitarist RICHARD BALUYUT and singer/bassist FONTAINE TOUPS (owner of one of the best names in rock) magically tapped into what made them great, playing such Dead Leaves fireballs as “Bright Light” with the same energy, passion and distortion-blaring noise that I remembered from way back. In fact, I’d forgotten how noisy they could be. Their set was a reminder that the marriage of distortion and noise with super sweet melodies and quiet/loud dynamics will never go out of style.
Then it was on to Mission of Burma. The setlist was literally exactly the same (except that they didn’t play any covers and thus skipped a second encore) as the New York show from several weeks earlier, at least from what I remember, and it was similarly great. However, the New York show ended up being more memorable for several different reasons. It was the first time we’d seen them do Signals, Calls and Marches in its entirety. Also, while I love seeing shows at the First Unitarian Church, its lack of air conditioning often makes it an uncomfortable place to be in the middle of summer on an especially hot day. Now Mission of Burma played there a few years ago as well and since they came back to play the same venue, I think they feel the same way in that they genuinely enjoy playing there, but similarly acknowledged the “stew pit” like conditions.
Nevertheless, in a few weeks we’ll be seeing them play Vs in its entirety at the Pitchfork Music Festival and that, along with a new Versus album (allegedly in the works) is a thing that I look forward to quite a bit, to say the least.
The above photo of Versus was taken at the show by JEREMY GRITES of the band SWIVEL CHAIRS, whose last album The Slow Transmission was mentioned on one of my Top 10 lists last year. The photo is used with his kind permission. You can see more of his photos here.
