Staff Blog
The Thermals, Nov. 2, First Unitarian Church
posted by Matt Hotz
The opening band, Philly’s own The War on Drugs, seemed out of place on this bill. Their long-form, lingering, expansive, largely instrumental wanderings share little with the headliner’s curt bursts of fury. In the First Unitarian Church basement Friday night, the odd pairing had an unintentionally striking (or deviously brilliant) effect: The War on Drugs’ droney, feedbacky ten minute jams made the Thermals’ two-and-a-half-minute burners sound even more urgent.
The Thermals got off the blocks quickly, starting with "Returning to the Fold" and racing through 17 songs and a one-song encore in little over an hour. The churchgoers were bouncing up and down, shouting along with frontman Hutch Harris’ vocals, imbuing the intermittently political, religious, and love-gone-wrong lyrics with a measure of joy. By the third or fourth song, though, the crowd started to notice the volume. A few folks abandoned their hard-earned spots up front (including myself, around the 11th song), their eardrums unable to handle the decibels washing over them in angry, poppy waves. Earplugs were rendered useless. Nobody really cared, though, since the Thermals managed to play everything the crowd wanted to hear with a surplus of energy and virtually no downtime between songs. Three days later, my ears are still ringing and I don’t care.
Video of "Here’s Your Future" and more pictures after the jump.
My camera, like my earplugs, couldn’t completely handle the decibels:
And, as promised, more pictures:
